SECOND COPY, 




LIBRARY. OF CONGRESS. 

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united states of america. 




RT OF 
GOOD 

MANNERS 






By MRS. S. D. POWER 
(Shirley Dare) 

A uthor of tt Ugly Girl Papers » 



OR 

CHILDREN'S 

ETIQUETTE 



THE WERNER COMPANY 

NEW YORK AKRON, OHIO 

1899 



CHICAGO 



q,v 



'"I 






701 



Copyright, 1899, 

BY 

THE WERNER COMPANY 



Art of Good Mannere 



CQPtLes K£C£lV£D. 




• *S!Sl« «(**' 







ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

OR 

CHILDREN'S ETIQUETTE 



BY 

MRS. S. D. POWER 

(SHIRLETDARE) 
Author of " Ugly Girl Papers " 



CONTENTS 



I 

TOWARD MOTHER'S COMPANY 

II 
GREETINGS AND NICKNAMES . 

Ill 

TO STAND, TO WALK, AND TO SIT . 

IV 
MANNERS AT HOME . 

V 

PARTY ETIQUETTE 

VI 

PARTY ETIQUETTE — FOR THE GUESTS 

VII 

LITTLE GENTLEFOLKS 

VIII 

MISS charity's lady 

IX 

AUNT CHARITY'S LADY, AGAIN 

X 

WITH YOUNGER CHILDREN 

XI 

MANNERS AWAY FROM HOME 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

Papers on Children's etiquette 



I 

TOWARD MOTHER'S COMPANY 

WHAT, Adelaide, out here in the entry 
alone, in a fidget between the stair-foot 
and the door? One would think it was a cat 
turned into a girl by her motions ! Taking a step 
toward the parlor, then turning, wriggling your 
shoulders, and half crying, I believe ! Girls have 
a habit of going into mild spasms for nothing. 
What straw lies crossway now ? 

There's company with your mother, and you're 
" dying" to see who it is, and you can't tell 
whether it will do to go in or not ? You do so 
dread seeing strangers, and yet there maybe some 
one you are fond of, and wouldn't miss seeing for 
anything, and you're afraid she will be gone before 
you can make up your mind what to do? You 
do seem to be " dying," or in danger of going into 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

small pieces. But, then, girls like strong words, 
just as they like pickles, and cinnamon, and citron, 
and all sorts of unwholesome things — tastes that 
you will drop as soon as you begin to half know 
anything. As to your going into the parlor, take 
it coolly, and think out the right way and the wrong 
way there is of doing this, as well as everything 
else, no matter how small. It isn't strange that a 
little girl of eleven shouldn't know just what to 
do in every case. Your grandmother, sometimes, 
has occasion to consider, old as she is. 

Does your mamma allow you to come into her 
parlor when, she is with callers without sending for 
you ? If she has never told you anything about 
the matter, there is a clause in the constitution of 
our country which provides that everything not 
forbidden is supposed to be allowed, and there is 
no harm in going in to find out if you are wanted. 
Open the door, and if your mamma wants you, 
she will say, " Come in ; " if not, she will look at 
you pleasantly, but not invite you. You make a 
little bow, and go out quickly and quietly. O, 
mamma always allows you to come where she is? 
All right. But think a minute. How long has the 
visitor been with your mother? It is likely they 
want a few minutes to themselves, not because 
they have anything to say you needn't hear, but 
two people can pay better attention to each other 



TOWARD MOTHER'S COMPANY 

when alone than if a third person comes in. The 
lady has been here twenty minutes. Then go in. 

But you don't quite know what is expected of 
you — whether you ought to just bow, or go up 
and offer your hand to the visitor, and say, " How 
do you do?" Or should you only say, " Good 
morning," or " Good day ? " 

Now, listen, and get what I tell you fixed in 
your mind ; because, when you once know what to 
do in company, all this flutter and nervousness 
goes off. Little girls are often the most uneasy, 
uncomfortable creatures in the world to do with, 
because they are always thinking of themselves, 
and not sure what is genteel, and fidgeting, and 
getting cross to hide their nervousness. 

What is the first thing you have to do now ? 
Why, to walk into the room ; and, let me tell you, 
this isn't a thing merely to laugh over. The way 
in which people enter a room shows whether they 
have good training, as plainly as anything else 
in manners. Open the door wide enough to walk 
squarely in, without squeezing or edging through, 
as if you didn't think enough of yourself to give 
your body room to go through without crowding. 
Don't rush in, or creep in, but hold yourself 
straight, and look directly at the people in the room. 
Don't hesitate; but if you don't know the visitor, 
go to your mother, and stand by her side, till she 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

says, " Mrs. So-and-so, this is my daughter Ade- 
laide." Then move a step forward, and bow, or 
courtesy, if you have been taught to do so ; for 
the courtesy is coming into use again with nice 
people, and it is a very graceful salute, when prop- 
erly done. You are not to hold out your hand, un- 
less the lady offers to shake hands with you; then 
it is your place to walk up to her, and give her your 
hand ; and when she says, " How do you do ? " 
answer " Very well, I thank you," or " Not very 
well," as the case may be. Say it pleasantly, and 
quietly; but you are not to say anything more 
to the lady, unless she talks to you. She may 
have so much to say to your mamma, that she 
will only be civil to you. Remember, she is to 
hold out her hand to shake, and to say, " How do 
you do?" first. She is older than you, and the 
elder person has the right to make the advances, 
as we call it — to shake hands or not, or to speak 
or not, as she chooses. If your mamma were in- 
troduced to a lady older than herself, or more 
thought of in society, your mother would not 
shake hands unless the lady offered to, nor 
would she begin talking, unless the lady showed 
that she wished it by saying something first her- 
self. 

I wish you could see Clara Crane as she used to 
be, and you would know how disagreeable a girl 



TOWARD MOTHER'S COMPANT 

can make herself by carelessness in these things. 
Her mamma introduced her to me, when she was 
a tall, long-legged slip of a girl, eight years old. 
Miss Forward came up, and poked out her hand. 
"How do you do, Miss Dudley?" she began in 
that loud, uncomfortable voice of hers, which no 
one could teach her to lower or soften. " I've 
been wanting to know you ever so long, mamma 
has spoken so much of you. Do you like Staten 
Island as a residence ? Is your health very good ? " 
All that would sound nicely enough from her 
mother, or some grown woman ; but the young 
lady was quite overcoming with her condescen- 
sions. Your place among older people is to be 
quiet. What they have to say to each other is 
much more interesting than your talk can be till 
you have learned a good deal more than you know 
now. 

When people talk to you, don't always say, 
"Yes, ma'am," and "no, ma'am," for answer, or 
to begin your answer. It is the easiest thing you 
can think of to say, but we want a little variety 
in conversation. You don't know how hard it is 
to talk to a little girl like this : — 

u Well, Addie, are you glad spring is here? " 

" O, yes, ma'am." 

"And are you glad school is out ? " 

" Yes, ma'am, I am." 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

" You don't like being shut up so many hours — 
do you? " 

" No, ma'am." 

Couldn't you say, " I'm glad spring has come, 
so I can work in my garden? " That would give 
us something to talk about at once, and you would 
have something to tell me that was very interest- 
ing, perhaps, before we were through ; for I could 
get you to tell me about your flowers, and what 
you do there, and which you like best. You 
needn't talk to show off. Very, very few grown 
people have anything to say worth showing off ; 
but we can any of us say something to please or 
interest those we talk to. If we can't, my dear, 
we have no business among other people. If they 
have to do the polite and the agreeable, and we 
can't be a very little polite and nice in return, you 
can't think what nuisances among folks we cer- 
tainly are. 

If somebody does tell you anything interesting, 
I really think you know enough not to be a little 
bore, asking too many questions, or asking them 
all at once. This is a piece of bad manners, that 
belongs more to boys. I was once trying to 
amuse the two children of some literary people, 
very bright, well-educated young folks, too, only 
their education went a long way beyond their 
manners, which is a pity for anyone. I happened 



TOWARD MOTHER'S COMPACT 

to say I had seen Indians on their own prairies, 
when the boy flew at me with his questions, his 
eyes fierce, his hands clinched with eagerness. 
" Real Indians? Cherokee or Sioux? Were they 
red or copper-colored ? What nations ? Did they 
ride horses in a circle ? Did they use stone arrow- 
heads ? Did they use wampum like the Eastern 
tribes? Were they tall as white men?" He 
acted just like a huge cat that meant to tear the 
knowledge out of me. Now, his questions showed 
he had read and thought about Indians in a way 
that was very clever for a boy ; but his manner 
showed that he was both selfish and harsh. 

Is this too much to remember? I dare say you 
will forget it in less time than I have been telling 
you, if you only think of it as something to be 
done for appearance's sake, just as you wear a 
heavy dress, or gloves too tight, because they 
look pretty. But when you think this is all for 
kindness' sake, because we ought not to slight or 
disturb other people any more than we want them 
to annoy us, you have the Key of Behaving, and 
your way opens easily. You will have to think 
what you are to do and say, because nothing nice 
was ever done without care. But the care grows 
easy in a few weeks, so that one can be polite — 
that is to say, kind, with as little effort as it takes 
to run four scales in music. Only you must be 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

the same to everybody, everywhere, to get in the 
habit. It won't do to be very nice to your 
teacher when she comes to see you, or to your 
handsome rich neighbor, whom you admire be- 
cause she has such pretty dresses, or to the new 
girl who has just come into your set, and every- 
body likes wonderfully, unless you are just as 
pleasant to the least popular girls, and to the 
tiresome neighbor who is poor and shabby and 
dull. 

School girls are fond of showing uninteresting 
people a very cold shoulder of civility. I have 
seen a well-dressed girl of thirteen treat her mottu 
er's visitor to a pert, " How d'ye do, Mrs. Clay? " 
with a turned-up nose, and general air of disdain, 
while she flounced round the room, looking for 
something or nothing, in a way that said plainer 
than words, " I don't see what people in rusty 
gowns have to live in this world for ! " and go out 
with a significant, " I want to see you as soon as 
I can have you to myself, mamma." 

She had a very sensible mother, who merely 
said, " We will dispense with your company 
awhile, Gertrude," and paid the poor visitor so 
much pleasant attention as to make her forget the 
rude girl's affront. 

Miss Gertude came down when she was gone, 
eager for a chat ; but the mother was iced dignity, 



TOWARD MOTHER'S CO MP ANT 

and answered only in the stiffest, shortest way. 
She gave the girl a very small saucer of berries 
for tea, forgot entirely to take her to ride, and 
settled herself with a magazine to read, instead of 
being sociable for the evening ; in short, snubbed 
her daughter as thoroughly as Miss Gertrude was 
fond of snubbing people who didn't happen to 
please her. 

" Mamma," she said at last, with tears in her 
eyes, — for you young ones, who are so hard and 
cruel to others, are very tender of. your own feel- 
ings, — " what does make you treat me so ? " 

Mamma took her time to finish the paragraph 
that interested her, and said, in a freezing way, 
" It's because I don't like your style." 

Gertrude colored furiously ; for, like most girls, 
she prided herself on being what English people 
call "very good form;" that is, her manner and 
dress after a nice model. Her mamma went on 
deliberately, — 

" My favorites are all people who would not, if 
they knew it, hurt the feelings of a washerwoman 
by any slight, or hint that they wished her away ; 
and I do dislike the company of half-bred people 
whose manners are always wearing to rags, and 
letting ill-nature and rudeness peep through." 

"Why, mamma ! To treat your own daughter 
so, because I can't endure that Mrs. Clay, who 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

always wears such dowdy bonnets, and makes her 
own dresses, so they never look nice, and who is 
always so particular to tell what bad nights she 
has, and says, ' Gertrude's growing quite a girl ! ' 
as if I was wearing short cloaks and baby sashes! " 
This came out with a perfect burst of indignation. 

" It is very disagreeable to find one's own 
daughter such a badly-bred child," said that terri- 
ble mother, calmly. " If Mrs. Clay does wear 
cotton velvet trimming on her dress, and talk in a 
homely way, she knows how to be kind to others, 
and how to treat them, which is more than all 
your advantages have been able to teach you. I 
wish you to understand that every shabby, ill- 
looking creature in the world has just as good a 
right and cause for attention as you with your 
style, as you are pleased to call it. And if you 
don't know that everybody is your equal in right 
to civility, you haven't learned enough to allow 
you to appear abroad, and I shall leave you at 
home, and not admit you to company till you can 
carry yourself better." 

It was a severe lesson ; but it vastly improved 
Gertrude, who, from an intolerably pert creature, 
became a pleasant sort of companion when she 
learned not to look people over from head to 
foot to see if they were worth her civility. 

I hope you know enough already not to grow 



TOWARD MOTHER'S CO MP A NT 

fidgety if your mother and the visitor talk to each 
other instead of to you. Don't break into the 
conversation with something of your own that 
has nothing to do with what they are saying. 
I've known a girl to stroll about the room if she 
was not noticed, and interrupt the talk with any- 
thing that came into her head. " O, mamma, 
who has made this long scratch on the piano ? I 
know James has been in here." Next it was, 
" Do you know Mrs. Gray's baby has two front 
teeth — real cunning ones ;" and a few minutes 
after, when we were very happily talking of old 
friends, Miss Uneasy called out across the room, 
" Mamma, the folks that live opposite are going 
out to ride ! " as if anybody cared. She made us 
forget what we wanted to say, and interrupted so 
often that I had to go away in self-defense, be- 
fore that vexatious child worried her mother out 
of temper. The trouble is, you can't get one of 
these pests to leave the room on any pretense, 
unless they are ordered out, and then there is 
pouting, or a real storm. 

A nice child is the pleasantest company in the 
world ; but as for one that isn't nice, I'd rather 
have a thieving, pinching monkey by way of 
comfort. 



II 

GREETINGS AND NICKNAMES 

HE other Sunday, before going into church, 
I stopped out of the dust to let my dress 
down, and was by chance witness of the choice 
manners found where they should not be to-day. 
Two well-dressed girls of thirteen came in, whom 
I know belonged to the best families in the 
Society, and met on their way to the gallery, 
where our young folks like to have the full bene- 
fit of the organ and view of the congregation. 
These girls were pretty and nice in appearance, 
from the trim French boots to the checked silk 
and pale chip hats they wore, which matched, in 
blue, ruffles, and trimming. They carried them- 
selves well, which means that they walked straight 
and easily, without being so shy that they seemed 
made of wood, or holding their heads so high as 
to look haughty. But as the elder put her dainty 
foot on the stairs, the greeting that passed be- 
tween them was, " Hallo, Sid ! " from her, and 
" Hallo, Tude ! " from her friend. It was just 
what two lounging young men might have said, 



GREETINGS AND NICKNAMES 

or two stable-boys, for that matter. It would not 
have been out of the way for them, but it sounded 
odd from a pair of well-bred girls. There was 
nothing else coarse or fast in their manner ; but 
they used unconsciously the words they heard 
from the rest of their mates. It sounded as it 
does to hear a beautiful gray and rose-colored bird 
begin to swear with a croak in his throat. Or it 
was as little in keeping as if one had found an end 
of soiled tape hanging outside of their delicate 
dresses. It is common enough to hear girls say 
" Hallo " at meeting, but one can't like it, nor get 
used to it. 

It's a trifle, but you might as well leave off go- 
ing to school and learning manners at once, if 
you despise trifles. They make all the difference 
between nice things and common ones. You 
ought to know better, and you do know enough 
to prefer sweet, lively, gentle people to those who 
are rough and careless. Girls fall into the free 
and easy ways of their brothers because they are 
easy ; and one habit leads to another, till it is no 
longer sweet and quiet company we find in them, 
but the rapid ways and short speech of young 
gentlemen in flounces. The ways of boys are 
pleasant enough in their place ; but there was 
meant to be a difference between them and girls, 
for the sake of giving us a variety, I suppose. 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

And if girls try to be like boys, where will we get 
our sweethearts, please? You can't sweeten with 
allspice and cloves. 

Of course, when you meet a friend you see 
every day, you don't want to say, " How do you 
do?" as formal as to a person you see less often; 
but wouldn't it sound just as pleasant to pass with 
a " Well, Sidney," and " Well, Gertie," as to 
"Hallo" like teamsters? If you want to be a 
little more precise, Good Morning always has a 
kindly sound when you think that it means one is 
wishing good to you that day. It is a little 
prayer of good-will for everybody we say it to, 
and each one needs it in this trying world. We 
don't need to ask people whom we see often, 
" How do you do?" because we know pretty well 
without asking ; but when friends have been 
away from us a while, it sounds indifferent to 
throw them a good morning without caring to ask 
if they are better or worse in feelings or body 
since they left us. How do you do, doesn't 
mean to ask merely if one is sick or in health ; but 
it wishes to know if all is well with him. All the 
forms of politeness have the friendliest meaning ; 
and if we can only feel all that they express, we 
shall find ourselves the politest people in the 
world without any more trouble. 

While you are thinking of these things, pray 



GREETINGS AND NICKNAMES 

make up your mind to drop the stupid nicknames 
that girls seem to delight in. I say stupid ones ; 
but you are not to think, as some good people 
do, that all nicknames are senseless. Whenever 
we are familiar with anyone, it is an instinct to 
soften and shorten their names, and nicknames 
often express some peculiarity of a person with 
a good deal of pith. Trudie is a softer name than 
Gertrude, Gertie is a shorter one ; and somehow it 
is nature among all the nations in the world to 
turn a friend's name, shorten it, and pet it, to 
make a special name of it for those who love him. 
Pet names and nicknames are pleasant because 
they belong only to one's family and intimates. But 
there are some names so harsh and uncouth, 
without any meaning or fun, that there is no 
excuse for using them. I know girls whose 
favorite nickname for Gertrude is " Toot," or 
"Tute," as you like to spell it. Besides making 
one think of a fish-horn, it isn't in the least like 
the name it is taken for, any more than Caddie, or 
Cad, is like Caroline, or Wede is like Louisa ; for 
which I've had the unhappiness of hearing it 
used. The worst and most sickishly silly of all is 
Mamie for Mary, in any but a very little girl who 
cannot speak plain. Are names any sweeter for 
being spoken as toothless babies might mumble 
them in trying to talk? Don't make dumplings 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

out of your friend's names, or gnaw them out of 
all shape. Boys have their whims that are past 
endurance. Geordie always sounds like a babyish 
nickname for that manly name George. To hear 
a boy called Dode, when his real name is Theo- 
dore, gives most people a disposition to think 
little of the speaker and of the boy too. In the 
country, I believe, it is the height of manliness for 
a boy who goes to district school to be called 
Hank, if his name happens to be Henry — for what 
reason I cannot tell, unless because it is the least 
like it of any name in the spelling book. You 
must have the least grain of sense in your foolish- 
ness to make it fun, just as we have to put a pinch 
of salt into ice-cream to make it taste right. 

There are other nicknames, not pleasant to hear 
from older persons, but which we must allow to 
boys and girls — who appear, if they are not al- 
lowed small follies while young, to make up for it 
by large ones hereafter. When are the professors 
in our town ever called anything but " Prof " by 
the young folks, while the boys of the preparatory 
school would feel as if one was chaffing them if 
they were called anything more than " Preps." 
The church on the hill goes by the name of the 
" First Cong," with never another syllable. There 
is not the shadow of disrespect in this; it is only 
a boy's natural dislike to long pedantic names ; 



GREETINGS AND NICKNAMES 

and I fancy most people would be sorry to have 
all these whimsical ways of speaking dropped. 
They make^a variety. But there is a fault in so 
falling into the habit of using slang as never to 
speak without it. One might as well talk pidgin- 
English that the Chinese use, as to learn the slang 
dialect so thoroughly as to forget decent language. 
It will keep you from this to have one little rule 
about the matter — never to use slang in talking to 
older people. There are plenty of stories for chil- 
dren nowadays, in which the boys and girls speak 
the vilest slang, from beginning to end, to their 
fathers, and mothers, and teachers. They cannot 
speak like well-bred, cared-for children, used to 
neat, sweet expressions about them ; but they bor- 
row the talk of corner groceries, stables, and sa- 
loons, till one wonders if these young folks were 
actually brought up on the street. They say, 
" cheese it," or "that 's the cheese," like a grocer's 
boy ; and talk about the " cops," and " plug-uglies," 
say "nary red," and " going on the straight," like 
the low roughs who hang about the ill-smelling 
resorts of the town. These expressions are used 
so much by this class of persons that to hear 
them brings up the idea of the miserable places 
they come from. One actually seems to smell un- 
savory cheese and beer-spillings at the sound 
of such words. And it always seems as if a 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

boy's boots smelt of the stable when he uses such 
talk. 

There are several sorts of slang, and some of it 
is thieves' slang, and corner slang, which suggests 
nothing but what is vile and mean. Please to let 
that alone. As to the better sort of slang, be very 
careful not to get so much in the habit of using it 
that you can't do without it. When you can't 
describe a boy running down hill without say- 
ing he went " lickety split," or "lickety brindle," 
or if you must always say "cut and run" when 
you mean merely to run, you had better engage 
somebody to correct you every time you speak, 
for two or three weeks, till you can use decent 
English when you wish to. You get the taste of 
your slang — that is, the fun of it — most by not 
using it often. 

Your teachers have probably talked to you 
enough against using fine words for simple mean- 
ings, like saying splendid for pretty or good, and 
awful or terrible for what is ugly or bad. You 
must learn to choose words that mean just what 
you mean, no more and no less. When I hear 
girls saying anything is splendid, I don't feel like 
getting out of my chair to go and see it, for they 
use the word on every slight occasion. But a 
splendid thing ought to be something that 
the world would be glad to see — fine and rich 



GREETINGS AND NICKNAMES 

together. It isn't the word to describe caramel, or 
the ruffles on a debeige dress, or a picnic in a 
grove, or a visit to town, for any or all of which 
things young people use it. Why do you take 
out your best words for such common occasions? 
It is like paying out quarters for three-cent stamps ; 
and everybody would think you a fool for doing 
that. As for such words as "gent " and "pants," 
you probably know that there are two good rea- 
sons for letting them forever alone. The first is, 
that there are really no such words ; but they have 
been cut off of the longer ones — gentleman and 
pantaloons. The second is, that these short words 
are used by vulgar people almost entirely. Now, 
to be vulgar in manners is like being unclean in 
the face, and having one's clothes torn, or displeas- 
ing in any other way. You are just as unpleasant 
with your coarse ways of speaking as the dirtiest, 
raggedest newsboy in the street is in his appear- 
ance. As for these shabby and lowborn words, 
we will have none of them. 
5 



Ill 

TO STAND, TO WALK, AND TO SIT 

Oon't you feel very tired of being told to 
J^ " sit up" and "stand straight?" I used to, 
when a child, and could never see the use of it, so 
I'm afraid the sitting and standing were not well 
attended to. But every day somebody comes be- 
fore one, whose walk and way of holding them- 
selves are so bad that they are a very good lesson 
as to the worth of doing these things well. 

At theater, the other night, Mr. Edwin Booth 
was playing Richelieu, a play which, by the way, 
is considered one of the finest ever put upon the 
stage. A handsome young actor had the part of 
Adrian De Mauprat, a gallant, brave young sol- 
dier and gentleman of France, and very well he 
spoke some of the lines; but he spoiled the effect 
of his frank air and speaking face, by standing 
with his knees bent, and looking round the stage. 
I found that nearly all the actors stood in the 
same weak-kneed fashion. Only Mr. Booth, the 
principal, and one other ambitious actor, had any 
idea how to stand at all. Since then, thinking 



TO STAND, TO WALK, AND TO SIT 

over the matter, it seems that very few people 
stand or walk well, and the reason is they never 
thought anything about either. The college boys 
go by, looking like the flat, jointed pasteboard 
dolls awry, their shoulders and elbows up one side, 
down the other, and one hip sticking up to match. 
They have very fine figures for lying at full length 
under an apple tree, or stretched on a sofa, but 
when they stand, sit, or walk, their joints sag. 
Sometimes this is the effect of growing fast, which 
takes all one's strength ; but that excuse won't do 
for most boys. They copy the attitudes of loafers 
without knowing it. It is so easy to be a loafer. 
It takes as little talent to be a first-rate one, as it 
does to tell lies. The stout, pudgy boys who 
stand about the streets with hands in their pockets, 
shoulders up to their ears, and slack knees, as if 
they sat on the edge of nothing at all, make stout, 
pudgy men who could knock a blacksmith over, 
but who always " settle " if they stand alone. It is 
pure carelessness or ignorance with many boys 
that leads to these ill habits, and they deserve a 
special talking to about the matter. 

Every boy and girl should stand so as to have a 
good balance, that no one brushing past can dis- 
turb them, and that standing will tire them less. 
To this end, turn out your feet as far as you can, 
one foot an inch or two farther forward than the 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

other, resting the weight on the ball of the foot 
as well as the heel, and keeping the knees stiff. 
Brace them as if trying to bend the joint backward, 
and keep them so. You will feel as if you had 
hold of your knees, and in this way you can stand 
in a swaying horse car, or railway car, or on ship, 
with three times the steadiness of the common, 
loose-jointed way. Hold your head up, and hol- 
low your back in all you can without allowing 
yourself to poke out in front. Feel as if you were 
going to fall all to pieces ? That is because you 
are not as strong as you ought to be. You sit in- 
doors reading or studying when you ought to be 
out in the sunshine at play or work. It is not 
hard for thoroughly well persons to hold them- 
selves straight. It is the only natural thing to 
them. If you would bathe your joints in cool 
water before you go to bed tired, and try the same 
refreshing when you wake in the morning warm 
and languid, you would find it helped you to feel 
brisk and to hold yourself erect all day. If you do 
this after a long, tiresome walk or hard play, it will 
keep you from feeling stiff and aching the next 
morning. It will be hard work to keep straight at 
first. But if you once take pride in an erect, de- 
cided way of carrying yourself, it will come easy al- 
ways afterwards. To help yourself to it, stand flat 
against the door, so that your shoulder blades don't 



TO STAND, TO WALK, AND TO SIT 

press against it, which you can't do without hold- 
ingyour shoulders well back. When you sit, choose 
straight-backed chairs, and take care that your 
shoulder blades don't rest against them. Keep 
them flat, so that you won't grow up with these 
paddle bones sticking out under your coat or 
dress. 

When you walk, arch your back the other way 
from what the cat does. You will find this easier 
to think of and do than the oft-repeated command, 
" throw your shoulders back," and it is the same 
thing done by another set of muscles than those 
you naturally try to use on hearing those words. 
Hold your chest forward, as this gives you more 
room for breath, as you would find in running. 
Put the toe down first at each step, and bend your 
knee well back, as the whole foot touches the 
ground. This will give you a firm step, one of the 
great beauties of motion. Look at all good walk- 
ers, as they go swinging across country or pave- 
ments, with firm, lithe step. You see these two 
things in each of them, they put the toe to the 
ground first, and straighten the knee at each step. 
Look at the cat, which is a very graceful walker. 
See how she sets her paw down, and the little 
spring in her leg moves till it is straight. Noth- 
ing weak-kneed there, or in any animal that can 
walk far or fast, run, climb, or fight. As for you, 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

little girls, if you knew what grace there is in one 
of your slim, supple figures, or what pleasing there 
is in a round, stout one, if held straight and carried 
well, with a good step, you would spring out of 
your languid, fine-lady attitudes, and unlearn the 
goose walk three-fourths the women practice from 
the time they are eight years old. I often watch 
the feet of women on Broadway, instead of their 
faces. It is often painful, but it is curious that so 
many of them walk badly, and all do it alike. 
They lift their toes and set their feet down so 
that the sole of the foot shows at every step, 
broad as a duck's bill, and they have in result the 
walk of a green drake, or something not much 
better. You were not made to come down on your 
heels at every step, and the soles of your shoes 
were not made to show. Break yourselves of these 
bad habits, so that the next generation will have 
such grace and ease of movement that it will be a 
pleasure to look at them. 

It seems very tedious to learn these things, 
does it ? and you can't quite see how you are ever 
going to get the idea of a good carriage in your 
heads ? You must practice every day, for fifteen 
minutes or so, how to walk, just as recruits do. 
Turn your toes out, flatten your shoulders against 
the wall to start from, fix your eyes on a point 
opposite you, and a little higher than your head, 



TO STAND, TO WALK, AND TO SIT 

so you will look up and carry your head well, 
brace your knees. Now slowly lift your foot, put 
down the toe, straighten your knee and bring your 
foot down. So the next foot, walking on one 
line of the carpet or crack in the floor. Mind 
about looking up, and straightening the knees, 
for these two things will bring all the rest right. 
You will have to take time to learn, but you will 
get the idea best by practicing very slowly and stead- 
ily fifteen minutes daily. When you go to walk 
alone, down to the post office or to carry a basket 
to the neighbors, think about your steps a little. 
Don't try to make a hole in the ground with 
your heels, or let them fly up behind. Six weeks' 
practice ought to improve your walk very much, 
and after that you would grow so used to it as to 
walk well without thinking about it. If you have 
a long mirror to practice before, so much the 
better. If this makes you vain I shall have a 
very poor opinion of you. Or if thinking about 
your walk makes you think a great deal of your- 
self, I'm afraid there is something that needs cor- 
recting more than your manner, something weak 
in the head if not worse in the heart. Pray, why 
should you be any more vain of having a good 
walk than of having a clean face ? One is just as 
much credit, or rather the want of it is as much 
discredit, as the other. Yet you hardly get puffed 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

up because you are clean. Take all the improve- 
merit that comes to you, in the same way, as 
something you should not be without, but too 
much a matter of course to be proud of. For the 
least pride or vanity showing in a child is more 
offensive by far than a soiled face or ungainly 
walk. 

There is one trouble you find that besets older 
people, also. What shall you do with your hands? 
Trousers' pockets are not the place for them in 
company, and little girls have no pockets for them. 
I forgot, but does it look well to see a girl always 
carrying her hands in the pockets of her apron or 
jacket? It will do once in a while, among one's 
mates, but it is rather free and easy for a regular 
habit. You don't want always to fold them like a 
cat crossing her paws. Let me tell you something 
that will help in this puzzle which troubles much 
better-bred persons than you can be yet. I've heard 
well-trained ladies, brought up very carefully in 
good society, say, " I can't walk without a parasol 
or book. I must have something to do with my 
hands." 

One could not help feeling sorry they had not 
learned how to carry every part of themselves 
easily and gracefully, without thinking about the 
matter. If they would try a very simple thing, 
bringing the hands together in front, below the 



TO STAND, TO WALK, AND TO SIT 

waist, at arm's length, just as they sat down or start- 
ed on a walk, and then let them fall apart as they 
would, and keep them as they fall, the position 
would be nice and easy in nearly every case. Keep 
your hands down, and your arms pressed lightly 
against your sides in walking or in sitting. You 
need not look like a trussed chicken, at all, but a 
little stiffness at first is less harm than carelessness. 
Don't have slovenly manners whatever you are. 

Don't think, in all this advice, that you are to be 
little prigs and " high-shouldered " small crea- 
tures. There is a time to lounge, and a time to 
sit with one's heels higher than one's head, and to 
lie on the hearthrug. These are all changes of 
position that rest us by changing the weight from 
one muscle to another. It is a good thing, some- 
times, to sit in a chair tipped back, or put one's 
feet on a window sill ; it takes the strain off one's 
back. But we will take care to do this by our- 
selves, or with those so friendly and close as to be 
like ourselves. To sprawl before a stranger or 
visitor is entirely too familiar. It says, " I don't 
consider you of enough account to put myself in 
a pleasing position before you. I don't care 
whether I look awkward or not in your presence." 

It isn't a comfortable feeling to give a person, 
and it's no credit to you. None of us have such 
fine manners that we need be saving of them, 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

or be afraid of making too good an impression. 
We were made to be pleasant to ourselves and to 
others, and we ought to look well and act well for 
•their sakes. Even in the privileged time of a 
home evening, or in one's room with a chum, 
there is such a thing as easy lounging, quiet 
enough to save the eyes of a looker-on, and there 
is a loutish, wide-armed and wide-legged sprawl- 
ing, for which any mortal deserves to be started 
out of his chair with a rattan cane. I have seen a 
young man just from college, not to speak of men 
a good man years from it, who, in talking with a 
woman he did not know very well, would curl up 
in an easy chair with his shoulders above his collar 
and one leg over the arm of a chair, never know- 
ing the rudeness he was guilty of. And I've seen 
a woman of very good family indeed, who com- 
posed in French and painted in water colors, 
sprawl between two seats before two chance vis- 
itors, till she looked as if she were just about to 
tip over ; and I knew a poetess who read blue and 
gold books to young men in the back parlor, half 
lying on an easy chair with her feet on the sofa, 
both ladies having good health, and being in no 
way familiar with their visitors. 

But your mother wouldn't like to have you do 
so, and I want to help you with hints, so that you 
will never fall into these bad habits. You have 



TO STAND, TO WALK, AND TO SIT 

a better chance to grow wise and agreeable than 
those who went before you, for the world is wiser, 
and you are getting the benefit of it. Make much 
of your chance. 



IV 



MANNERS AT HOME 



" T DREAD to have vacation come, for the chil- 
-*- dren will be at home all the time." 
Somebody's mother said this in the sitting room, 
not long ago. 

It was a queer thing for a woman to say, as if 
she wanted to get rid of her children. But you 
may think it queerer when I say I don't blame 
that mother one bit. I know how things go on 
in that house. 

In the morning trouble begins. To say nothing 
of screeches, howls and jumps upstairs, while the 
children are dressing, that sound as if there was a 
bear garden overhead, peace downstairs is at an 
end when the first small head presents itself. In- 
stead of coming down in any Christian fashion, 
the door flies open in a way to carry lock and 
hinges with it, and a boy lands in the middle of the 
floor. Four mornings in a week he has to be sent 
back to comb his hair smooth, or take care of a 
strap or shoe-lacing. 

He would never affront our eyes in such a 



MANNERS A T HOME 

way if he thought to take a good look in the glass 
before he came down. He has his head in some 
new book before his mother can send him 
back, and drags his unwilling body away, with his 
eyes on the book, till her voice quickens him, and 
he disappears with a handspring on the way. 

You can't think how entertaining it is to have 
such a boy in the family. He took the table- 
cloth with him one morning, and upset the ink, 
and it took only two hours to undo the harm. 
For two weeks after, Harry was kind enough to 
vary the x . erformance by walking out of the room 
on his hands instead of his feet. As far as the 
mischief he can do, I don't know that it makes 
any difference which end of a boy is uppermost, 
but most folks prefer seeing a curly head, or a 
smooth one, to a pair of dusty boots, with the soles 
broken. 

Harry says we are " pernickety," a Scotch word 
he has picked up somewhere, meaning particular. 
It is a queer word, and expresses queer people. 
Whether it is queer not to like to see boys with 
shock heads and soiled jackets, or to have them 
shout, shuffle and hoot nearly every minute of 
their mortal lives, is a point on which Harry and 
we differ. I am sorry to say that not even a 
good book can keep him still. While he reads 
it he whistles, drums on the table, and, as a 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

last resort, plays tunes on his teeth, which rattle 
like castanets. It is a very pleasant variety per- 
formance, but I have known people to object to a 
hand organ, when it played all day. 

Carrie's father calls her the champion whiner. 
She always comes down cross in the morning, 
which, I think, is the effect of nibbling candy all 
the time. There is no harm in eating candy, as 
much as you want, if you eat it about meal times. 
But if you eat a little now and again, it will make 
you sick and cross and headachy, as I know poor 
Carrie is half the time. 

As breakfast isn't quite ready, Carrie takes a 
bit of caramel, and, crowding close up to her 
mother, begins, with a whine, by way of grace 
note : 

"Mamma, what shall I do with myself to-day?" 

" It is so bright I think it would do to walk. 
You might go to ask after Aunt Jane." 

" N-o-o. I don't feel like walking to-day. 
What else is there?" 

"Do you want to help me stone raisins? I'm 
going to make cake this forenoon." 

"N-o-o-o. That's too sticky work. I don't like 
it. Give me something else." 

"Well, how would you like to paint? Or will 
you try making those picture frames out of fret- 
work? You used to do them so nicely." 



MANNERS A T HOME 

" No, I don't like any of those things. I want 
something different. Oh, dear! I thought you 
would give such a good time in vacation, and I 
don't see one thing pleasant." 

After breakfast, before she has been out of 
doors to get a smile from the sun or say good 
morning to the large, bright, busy, happy world 
outside, this wretched, nervous midge of a girl 
curls up on the lounge, with Jean Ingelow's 
stories, the sweetest ever written for children. 
But Carrie pays Miss Ingelow a poor com- 
pliment, by reading her book in this stupid, selfish 
fashion, just as a greedy child crams itself with 
candy. All the sweet, bright, cool morning she 
sits there like lead, and it is as much as the family 
peace is worth to try to move her. I have my 
lap full of work, and ask her for the scissors, and 
she gets up, oh ! so slowly, holding the book to 
her nose, and reads all across the room, and back 
again, sticks the scissors out before her without 
looking, so that she nearly pokes them into my face. 

Her mother tells her to go to the next neighbor's 
for the cake pan, which goes back and forth be- 
tween the two houses till neither is quite sure 
which owns it. Miss wakes up with a stretch and 
a yawn like the poodle on the hearth, which shows 
much more than her boot-tops, below her dress, 
hunts another bit of caramel from her pocket, 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

which she munches in a very unpleasant fashion, 
saunters along as if her shoulder and hip were out 
of joint, and gets as far as the hall, first time 
trying. 

There she stops to look over the letters in the 
basket, waiting for the mail. She picks them up, 
and reads the directions, commenting on them, 
after this style : 

" Papa has been writing to Mr. Griffin, about 
the horses, I suppose. Heard him tell mother 
about it when I was in the bay-window, and he 
didn't know I was there. Miss Durant has a let- 
ter for that gentleman she writes to every morn- 
ing. I guess he is her beau." He was Miss 
Durant's half-brother, only Miss Wisdom didn't 
know that. " Mother has been writing to Aunt 
Kate, and there is something in the letter. I wish I 
knew what it is. Oh, it's a piece of my new dress. 
I guess she is going to get some more for kilt plait- 
ings. I don't want kilt plaitings. Bessie Evarts 
says they are going out, and I want fine shirring. 

"Mamma," bouncing into the room, "are you 
going to put kilt plaiting on my dress? Because 
you are real mean if you do. It isn't stylish; all 
the girls say so; and if you make it" — here she 
forgets herself completely — " I just wont wear it, 
there!" 

All this fuss is for nothing, because her mother 



MANNERS A T HOME 

had only sent for a yard or two more of silk, to 
make a new waist when the old one wore out. 
But, you see, people who want to know more than 
is good for them, find, as Solomon says, that too 
much wisdom is a weariness to the flesh. 

Harry comes in by this time, with his trousers 
tucked into his boots, his hat on his head, and 
mud on his feet. He throws himself into the easy 
chair, while his mother, tired with her forenoon's 
work, sits down on the lounge, with nothing at 
her back to rest it. She can sit uncomfortably, 
but somebody comes in who can't think of such a 
thing, not she ! 

" Mamma, Harry's got my place. I was going 
to have that chair. Make him get up." 

"Why didn't you keep it then, Nannie?" 
Harry is an expert at making faces, and he gives 
his sister the benefit of it. 

" Mamma ! stop Harry making faces at me. 
You're a real mean boy. Stop!" 

And the little fury flies at her brother, her 
hands in his hair, scratching and biting, while 
Harry kicks and cuffs and shakes her off, howling. 
Pretty, isn't it ? 

Well! this is the picture I have seen between 
the children of this well-to-do family nearly 
every day for a month. Do you wonder their 
mother dreads to see vacation come ? 

6 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

The children settle down behind the window 
curtain pouting. 

" Oh, dear !" sighs a small, miserable voice, " I 
thought vacation would be so nice, — and it isn't 
at all !" 

" Carrie," says her tired mother, "can you tell 
what you would like if you could have it ?" 

" I could," shouts Harry, interrupting; "never 
to do anything you don't want to." 

" I asked Carrie," observed his mother. 

" Well, yes," says the poor thin little voice, 
" I'd want to be always doing the thing I liked 
best, and have somebody to tell me what it 
was." 

Poor child ! She reminds me of the French 
people in politics. Somebody said, who knew 
them pretty well, that they didn't know what 
they wanted, but were always fighting because 
they couldn't get it. 

Let us see how this rule of never doing any- 
thing one didn't want to would work. The per- 
son of all the world who comes nearest to always 
having his own way, I suppose, is the Shah of 
Persia. His will has been law, ever since he was 
born, one may say, and I've a notion that he has 
found it very hard work to know what to do with 
himself. Probably the journey to Europe was 
taken to amuse him, because he was tired of 



MANNERS AT HOME 

everything else. The kings and queens, the 
emperors and grand dukes, did all they could 
think of to entertain him because he was the chief 
ruler of a country, just as they are, and they can't 
have company as high as themselves every day. 
They made feasts and balls for him, and got up 
great shows of soldiers and fireworks to please 
him. They would gather all their armies that 
they could get together, and have sham battles, 
and all their ships of war, and have mock sea 
fights, sights that the kings and dukes thought 
very grand themselves. 

But they found the Shah such a troublesome 
visitor that, we are told, they were very glad to 
have him go home again. He thought manners 
of as little account as Harry does, and as he never 
had to do anything that he didn't like, he never 
paid the least attention to them. If his food 
didn't please him he spit it out, or threw it about 
the floors. He ate with his fingers, because it 
was handy, I suppose, just as Harry says, when 
his mother speaks to him for picking the raisins 
from the mince pie with his fingers. Before the 
court, where all the lords and ladies were beauti- 
fully dressed, and had the most beautiful manners 
to correspond, this savage Shah thought no more 
of going to sleep, if the fit seized him, than of 
lighting his pipe. No matter if he was to spend 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

the evening at a grand ball at a palace, and he 
found anything that amused him more, if it were 
only a little dancing dog, he would wait, and dis- 
appoint everybody, and keep everyone else 
waiting, till he was half-coaxed, half-dragged 
away to keep his promise. 

He was sulky and rude, just as the humor took 
him. He would say to a nice old lady, " How 
ugly you are ! " and ask a man, " What makes 
you have such an ugly wife? If I were 
you I would get rid of her." In the middle 
of a show, at which people had spent thousands 
of dollars to please him, he would order his 
carriage away, because something did not suit 
him, or because he was just hungry and thought 
he had rather be eating an apple tart than " wast- 
ing his time over such fool nonsense," as he 
probably said to the folks who asked him there. 

The very people who wanted him to come to 
their houses dreaded to see him stay, for he was 
so careless with his food, throwing it about and 
spilling his drink, as to spoil all the carpets and 
the ladies' dresses near him. 

He thought, like Harry, that it was too much 
trouble to be always thinking about manners, as 
the boy says, when his mother wants him to use 
his napkin carefully, and not spill crumbs on the 
carpet. 



MANNERS AT HOME 

Poor Empress of Germany ! I know how to 
feel for her with such a rude guest, for we have 
somebody at our house who hasn't a bit better 
manners than the Shah. I'm sorry for the boy, too. 
His ears must be tired of the din, " Harry, don't 
step on my dress;" " Harry, don't make such a 
noise with that apple ; " or, as Carrie says, " Don't 
chank so ;" or, " Harry, keep off my work, do, 
please." 

Do you want to hear a sermon Harry's mother 
preached to him ? It is a cast-off sermon, but 
Harry never made any use of it, and it ought to 
be as good as new. Perhaps some of you have 
heard something like it before. 

The house is the place to be quiet. If you 
want to frolic and shout, go out of doors, and 
have a good enough time there so you can be 
quiet indoors. Move lightly and pleasantly. 
Don't go pounding about the house as if your 
boots were going through the floors, or come 
down stairs as if the top walls were tumbling after 
you. Fly round as fast as you like, but don't 
make a noise about it. I know it is just as easy 
to go to the top of a house, four flights of stairs, 
three steps at a time, without making noise 
enough to let anybody know what you are doing, 
as to thunder about it. Don't ask me how I found 
out, but it is one of the things I know all about. 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

Carrie needs to mind her steps, too. It is a 
great wonder to grown folks how slim girls can 
make so much noise as they do. They don't 
walk, they pound, as if their business was to wear 
out carpets. Girls are forever talking about being 
stylish and genteel, and worrying about an inch 
or two in the width of their trimmings, or the 
shape of their hats, as if their standing depended 
on such things entirely, while they are as coarse 
and common as can be in their manner of carrying 
themselves. It is always to be desired that your 
clothes should be fresh and pretty, but it is of 
much more consequence that your bodies should 
be nice, and well trained in their movements. 
The dress may be something you can't help, but 
the body and the manner is yours — to be a credit 
or discredit, as it happens. 

So be neat. If a child goes about with soiled 
neck and ears, it is a sure sign he does not think 
much of himself, and how can I, or anybody else, 
think much of him ? Don't be afraid of soap and 
water. If you can, use hot water every morning 
to wash your neck and face, rubbing the soap 
well into the roots of your hair on the forehead 
and behind the ears. Nobody can wash quite as 
clean with cold water as with hot, for the latter 
dissolves the oil of the skin, that gathers the dust 
every day, and crusts with it. Your skin will 



MANNERS AT HOME 

look a shade whiter for washing with hot water. 
But I shall give you a whole sermon on this very 
thing another time. 

Now let me tell you something I doubt you 
have ever heard from mother or grandmother in 
just the same words, though they have been tell- 
ing you pretty much the same thing since you 
were old enough to hear. 

Keep yourself to yourself. Don't be putting 
your elbows into my side, as you button yourself 
to me to look at the last new book when it 
comes from the post office. Keep your eyes to 
yourself. Don't be peeping into people's letters, 
or staring at a new dress, or a mark on anyone's 
face. It is very ill-bred to try to find out any- 
thing you are not intended to know, or to hear 
what is not meant for you. Make your glance as 
light and quick as your step. Besides, it is not 
kind to notice defects. So don't look at a cripple's 
lame leg, or the swelling on anyone's cheek. 

Keep your hands to yourself. It is rude to 
touch anything that belongs to another till leave 
has been given. How did you act, Harry, when 
Professor Craig was here ? He had brought out 
his photographs and specimens for us to see, and 
laid them on the table. There were delicate 
pressed plants and samples of gold dust on the 
table, but you rushed at the pictures, with your 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

usual "What's this?" and seized them, knocking 
over the dust, and crushing a rare Australian 
fern. 

It was no use to say " I'm sorry," and " I didn't 
mean to." Nobody supposes you did; but that 
didn't bring back the fern that the professor 
thought so much of, or pick up the gold dust. 
Carelessness is worse than stealing. You don't 
think so ? Would it be worse to take the fern be- 
cause you wanted it, or to spoil it, because you 
couldn't keep your hands to yourself? You are 
like the kings of old, who drove right over people 
rather than turn their chariots out of the way. 
Instead of laying hands on whatever you can get 
hold of, try never to touch anything not your own, 
unless you are told to. 

But Harry's rudeness is not half as offensive as 
Carrie's. She seems to think it very smart and 
spirited to say to her mother, with a saucy pert- 
ness : " I shan't, mamma, you needn't think I'm 
going to ; " or, " Mamma Kent, I think you're 
right mean ; " or, " Mamma, I tell you I'm not 
going to have that." I suppose it very refined, 
after their notion, for the " young misses " of 
Church Hill, as they like to be called, to talk to 
their mothers as they would to a chambermaid, 
only the chambermaid wouldn't endure such lan- 
guage. If the young misses — it is as well to call 



MANNERS A T HOME 

them so, the name fits them, for they are neither 
nice girls, nor young ladies — if these misses have 
no respect for the fifth commandment, or love for 
their mothers, I notice they have an exaggerated 
dread of being out of style. 

Style, I think, stands with some people instead 
of taste, kindness and conscience, as it is the only 
thing for which they have the slightest considera- 
tion. They would be aghast at their pertness if 
they knew what very bad style indeed it was, and 
that the children of the wealthiest and best fami- 
lies are trained to a strictness of respect for their 
parents, which it would be very hard for the misses 
of Church Hill to learn. 

Respect for one's father and mother, as well as 
to older persons generally, is the first point of 
high breeding all over the world. All the most 
polished nations hold it so. The French, who 
give lessons on manners to other nations, will 
show an old woman more attention than they will 
the prettiest young one. The Chinese and Japa- 
nese, who are among the most polite people on 
the face of the globe, are devoted to their fathers 
and mothers ; and the Turks everywhere pay the 
deepest respect to an old man. One does not 
hear the phrase, " the old man," used, except as 
a title of honor. If you were a young princess or 
a countess, as you have often thought you would 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

like to be, the first thing you would have to learn 
would be respect for others. You would not be 
allowed to keep the easy-chair when your mother 
the queen, or your aunt the countess, came into 
the room. No matter how tired you were, or how 
interesting a book you were reading, you would 
have to rise, put aside what you were doing, and 
wait quietly till your august relative told you to 
be seated. If she wanted anything a yard away, 
and you let her rise from her chair and wait on 
herself, you would probably be sent away in dis- 
grace, and kept until you learned better manners, 
more becoming a princess. 

If you, Harry, were His Royal Highness of Sax- 
ony, and were to marry a queen when old enough, 
you would have to improve on your present man- 
ners to a degree that would make you sick of life 
for awhile. You would have to learn to pay at- 
tention to other people before yourself, to be 
pleasant when you didn't feel like it, to wait on 
ladies, and be polite to old men with great gray 
moustaches and not much to say, because they 
were high generals in the army, or councilors of 
state. If you showed temper to His Majesty 
your father, you would, in all probability, be or- 
dered under arrest, like a common soldier, to teach 
you to respect authority. 

Every soldier, no matter what his rank, must 



MANNERS A T HOME 

learn to obey, and to show respect. Every officer 
of government, every man of position in the 
world, has to do the same. The only exceptions 
are people like the Shah, and the Khedive of 
Egypt, who are of very little account in the world. 
They never care about manners, and never do 
anything they don't want to, if they can help it. 
The consequence is, they seldom have a good 
time for their own part, and they never allow 
others to enjoy themselves at all. 



PARTY ETIQUETTE 

n"7HE kind and thoughtful lady who presides 
over these pleasant pages hopes I will re- 
member her children who want to know how to 
carry themselves at parties. When I was a little 
girl and went to parties, the only thing we thought 
about was how to enjoy ourselves best, and we 
tried to do this so hard that we often succeeded 
in spoiling the whole affair. It takes something 
more than ice creams, glace fruit, and " the Ger- 
man," with favors, to make the party a success. 
The best way that anybody knows to insure a good 
time, is for the hostess to think of nothing but 
how to please her guests, and for them to think 
how to please each other. 

But as it is in everything else, wishing to please 
and knowing how to please are two different things. 
It is a great mistake for anyone to say that the 
desire to be polite is all that is necessary to teach 
politeness. As you grow older, you will see many 
well-meaning folks who, with the best wish in the 
world to be agreeable, never know enough to make 



PARTT ETIQUETTE 

themselves so. Don't be above giving your good 
will the benefit of training. 

What do you want to give a party for ? So that 
you can swing, and dance, and play croquet, eat 
bonbons and white grapes, or nuts and apples, all 
you want, and have boys and girls to help amuse 
you ? That is not the idea of giving a party. You 
ask your friends to come to your house that you 
may give them a good time, and if you don't care 
enough about them to put your own likes and 
dislikes aside for one afternoon or evening, to at- 
tend to theirs, you had better not have a party at 
all. Instead, you ought to ask your mother to 
let you eat the cake and jellies alone, and hire a 
boy to come and swing you, or get your two aunts 
to spend a day amusing you by yourself. If you 
want other children to see how much better your 
house and croquet set are than anything they 
have, or mean to show off your new dress and 
your mother's fine fruit cake, and the variety of 
nice things she can spread the table with, you 
might as well have a doorkeeper and charge ad- 
mission, for all the politeness there is in your party 
giving. 

It is your place to give pleasure in your own 
house. Grown people expect to take a great deal 
of pains to please their guests, sure that they will 
return the kindness in their own homes some other 






ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

time. If you want your friends to come and en- 
joy your garden or your house, and are willing to 
lay yourself out, to make them happy, that is the 
right feeling to give a party with, and I hope you 
may give one very often. 

If you want to have your party in really good 
style, don't put on too much about it. Foolish 
little girls, who tease to have cards printed for 
their evenings, and call them receptions, should 
know what Mr. Tiffany's engraver says, who sends 
invitations for the most elegant people in New 
York : that a written invitation is always more of 
a compliment than a printed one, just as it is more 
of an attention to send a letter to a friend than a 
newspaper. The only use of a written invitation 
is to remind people of an engagement that might 
otherwise slip their minds, or to save their hostess 
the trouble of going to ask a number of friends in 
person. 

For a pleasant afternoon or evening's fun, your 
acquaintances ought to find it polite enough if 
you send to ask them by word of mouth, just as 
Mrs. Lewis Washington used to ask her neighbors 
to drink tea, when it was held an honor at the 
capital to be invited in this informal way by the 
niece of Washington himself. 

If you want a large party, it will be more con- 
venient to write to your friends. An invitation 



PARTY ETIQUETTE 

should be neatly written on a whole sheet of small 
note paper, with envelope to match, and sent by 
hand. I mention these things because young 
people are apt to be careless about such things, 
unless they are finical, and just as bad the other 
way. It is never polite to send an invitation 
through the post office in your own town, though it 
may be very convenient, for you cannot be sure of 
its reaching the person in time, as when it is sent 
by messenger. Remember these things, for you 
will find the etiquette the same when you are men 
and women. 

You hardly need a form for the notes. Pray 
don't put on airs that would suit if you were 
your own father and mother, but be your own 
size. It is just as absurd for you to use the forms 
and expressions of older people, as if you went 
about in your father's long-tailed coat, or your 
mother's shawl and gown. You may read these 
notes from girls of fourteen, and choose which 
you like for a model. 

" The favor of your company is requested at Mrs. Ben- 
thusen Jones', Summit Street, on Thursday evening, May 
3d, at half past eight o'clock. Dancing. 

" R. S. V. P." 

R. S. V. P., after the invitation, stands for the 
French phrase, "Respondez sil vous plait" which 
means, "Answer if you please." It saves time in 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

writing, which is a good excuse for using French 
or any other language. Be careful in using new 
forms, however, or you may make as queer a 
blunder as the lady did whose ideas of abbrevia- 
tions were somewhat mixed, so that she sent out 
all her invitations marked, instead of R. S. V. P., 
with R. I. P., which is a common form that Ro- 
man Catholics put on tombstones and at the end 
of funeral notices, and m<td.ns,"Requiescatinpace" 
or " May his soul rest in peace," a pleasant wish 
enough, but one her friends were not ready to see 
used for them. 
The other reads : 

" Dear Mary : My friends are coming Friday evening, 
for a gay time. Of course they won't all be here unless you 
are. Will you be sure and come? Half past seven, and 
dancing. Yours, Nellie. 

27 Rivington Place. 

If there is to be dancing you should always give 
a hint of it, as people like to dress more and in a 
lighter way for a dance than where there is only 
music and round games. 

The person asked should always send an an- 
swer, so that the hostess will know who is coming. 
After you have promised to go, if anything hap- 
pens to prevent, lose no time in sending word, so 
that some one else may be asked to take your 
place, for there may not be enough to make up a 



PARTT ETIQUETTE 

play or a dance without. When you give a party, 
look up all your amusements beforehand, your 
croquet set, the parlor billiards, the grace hoops, 
the battledores and the card games, to have them 
in good order, ready for fun. Look out the music 
you will want, and remember, you are to play 
yourself before you ask anyone else. No matter 
if others play better than you do, it is your place 
to do your best in some short piece, so that none 
of your guests need feel that you are saving your 
modesty at the expense of theirs. But you 
mustn't try to show off in your own house. Let 
others appear at their best. You must even dress 
plainer than the rest, that no one may feel morti- 
fied by comparison. But when you go to a party 
you must put on your best clothes in compliment 
to the lady who asks you. 

If you have a visitor staying with you when 
you are invited to a party, it is the proper 
thing to ask permission beforehand to bring her 
with you, and no polite hostess would think for a 
minute of refusing the request. If such a thing 
happened, or your visitor had no dress for a party 
with her, or anything else kept her from going, 
either you should all stay away, or one of your 
family should stay with her to keep her company. 
I hope you don't need to be told it would be the 
greatest rudeness to leave her at home alone. If 

7 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

you have a friend with you who does not know 
the hostess, present him or her at once, after you 
make your own greeting. Say, " Mrs. King," al- 
ways speaking her name first, " this is Mary 
Clymer, or Willie Hazard, you told me to bring." 
Be near the door to meet your friends, speak to 
them cordially, give them something to look at, 
or some one to talk to, and make them feel at 
home at once. Your mother should be with you 
to receive the company, for it is her house they 
come to, and it is her place to make them wel- 
come. Afterward, she may leave you or not, as 
she chooses. When you go to a party, always 
speak to the lady of the house first of anyone in 
the room, when you enter, and to her son or 
daughter who gives the party, and such of the 
family as are near, before anyone else. You only 
need to say, " Good evening, Mrs. So-and-so ; " it 
is her place to say something pleasant to you, and 
then, unless she keeps you talking, you must 
move away to give others a chance. It is the 
part of the girl who gives the party to see that 
everyone is amused and sociable all the time, not 
leaving anyone to feel neglected, or showing one 
person more attention than another. If she sees 
a shy girl or boy standing alone, the best way is 
not to say, " You look lonesome," or " I'm afraid 
you are not enjoying yourself," drawing every- 



PARTY ETIQUETTE 

body's attention, but find something quietly for 
that person to do. Ask the boy to show pictures 
or flowers to another one, stroll that way with an- 
other girl and set them to talking, or walk with 
her yourself, taking no notice of any bashfulness 
at first, till you make her forget herself. Never 
forget the plain, shy people, if you want to have 
the reputation of giving pleasant parties ; the 
bright, lively ones can take care of themselves. 

You will find in the next chapter full directions 
for behaving at a grand party. 



VI 

PARTY ETIQUETTE — FOR THE GUESTS 

T^ITTLE VISITOR, or one not so little either, 
-■— ^ your part of the civilities at a party is not 
so trying as that of the lady who undertakes to 
amuse you all. 

If you go to a stylish party in town, the servant 
takes you upstairs to the room where you lay off 
your wraps, before you meet the lady of the house 
at all. See that your dress is all in order, and 
your bows pulled out nicely, and not tied in a 
wisp as I have seen them on little girls at parties, 
your hair tidy, no stray locks about the ears and 
temples, and your sash smooth. Of course no- 
body has to tell you every time you sit you should 
lift the sash or overskirt, not to crease it. At a 
party it is the business of everyone to look their 
best, and a dowdy dress is as much out of place 
there as slang in church. Dress as well as you 
can afford to, and with care, so that no pins can 
come out, and no ribbon become untied, and no 
flowers drop out, and then you are not to think 
about your looks any more. Lady Hancock, the 



ETIQUETTE— FOR THE GUESTS 

wife of John Hancock, and one of the grandest 
ladies of the Revolution, when ladies were more 
particular than they are now, used to say that she 
would never forgive a girl who did not dress to 
please, or who appeared pleased with her dress. 
You know how absurd it seems to you when a girl 
goes about looking as plain as words could say, 
" This is a new dress, and I am completely satis- 
fied with it, and can think of nothing else." 
Don't flatter yourself that if you feel so it won't 
creep out. People can see vanity right through 
one. Nothing in the world shows so plainly, and 
the only way not to show it is not to feel it. You 
look and act nicely ? Very well, it is something 
to be glad of, but there are dozens more in your 
circle of friends who appear as well as you do, or 
think so at any rate, and there is no use to give 
yourself airs. Other people think more of their 
looks and dress than they will of yours, and if you 
think of yourself every minute it won't make you 
one whit prettier, or more noticed. The best thing 
you can do is to forget yourself as soon as you can. 
If one of the girls has a pretty dress, have the 
grace to admire it cordially, and don't be vulgar 
and envious enough to run it down and say cut- 
ting things, even if you think she needs taking 
down. Have you never heard such talk as this at 
a party ? 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

"Did you see that Valenciennes overdress? 
And doesn't she feel good over it ! I wouldn't be 
as proud as some people are for money ! " 

" Do you think that cardinal color becomes Sid- 
ney French ? I can't say it is in good taste to 
wear such conspicuous colors. But Sid French 
would wear two kinds of hair to make folks look 
at her." 

" Should you think 'Titia Gleason would wear 
that old sage green silk, made over from her 
mother's ? Those Gleasons ought to dress better. 
Their father is making money, and he could afford 
to give those girls anything. If I were one of 
them I wouldn't go out in company at all if I 
couldn't have as good as the best. My mother 
says she does like to see folks dress according to 
the company they keep," and so on. 

The girls of to-day know more than their moth- 
ers ever did, or ever will again. The most expe- 
rienced society woman can say, as Swift's " City 
Madam " did long ago, 

" My little Nancy 
In flounces hath a better fancy " 

than she has herself. 

Parties and dress always go together. Why is 
it that parties do not always suggest the best and 
and sweetest of everybody in other ways ? 

You don't need to be told to wait in the dress- 



ETIQUETTE— FOR THE GUESTS 

ing room, till all those who came with you are 
ready, so that your party can go down together. 
You will find the lady of the house, and her son 
or daughter who gives the party, near the parlor 
door, and you are to go up to them and make a 
bow if you are a boy, or a courtesy if you are a 
girl. It may help you to make a courtesy to re- 
member that it is half kneeling to the person you 
salute. When you bow don't bend your neck as 
if you were going to have your head cut off, but 
bend your shoulders, and don't laugh at anyone 
who makes an awkward salute. Unless the lady 
says something to you, the best thing is to walk 
right away and talk to somebody you know. If 
you are a stranger, don't get into a corner and 
stay there till somebody drags you out, neither 
make yourself conspicuous, but sit just out of the 
way till the others are introduced to you. If you 
are overlooked you are at liberty to speak to any- 
one without ceremony. Don't complain that you 
are slighted, or say that you find the time dull, 
but seek for something to amuse yourself with, so 
that when people come to you they will not have 
a pouting, insulted child to take care of. Try not 
to feel too much hurt at what looks like neglect ; 
people seldom intend slights, but they sometimes 
are careless of their company without really know- 
ing it. 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

I hope you don't need telling that it is in the 
worst possible taste to show spite or insist on 
your preferences against the wishes of others at a 
party, of all places in the world. Haven't I seen 
a girl in flounced silk and embroidered muslin 
bathed in tears in a side room, with friends hover- 
ing over her, begging her to be consoled, offering 
anything to make peace, and for what? Because 
somebody had insisted that her way of playing 
croquet was not the right one, according to club 
rules, or her bosom friend had perversely played 
airs from Madame Angot, when she wanted to 
sing her pretty Scotch song. There had been no 
outburst, only the disappointed one had gone off 
and grieved till she drew half the party round her 
to sympathize with her. Girls often think such 
sentimental airs and tender spirits very interest- 
ing, but instead they are very selfish and ridicu- 
lous. No matter how much your feelings are hurt 
or your wishes crossed, try not to show it, and 
the rest will feel very grateful to you for not spoil- 
ing their pleasure with your airs. 

The rules for any party are not different from 
those for behavior at home. You dance and play 
and make yourself pleasant, just as you do at 
home always. This ought to put some of you on 
your good behavior, for, try as you will, and put 
on all you can, you can't show anything better in 



ETIQUETTE— FOR THE GUESTS 

company than your old home everyday manners. 
You may set out to be very polite, but unless 
you are polite every day, the shabby, rough, com- 
mon style gives all the impression that people get 
of you. Manners are not like clothes, that you 
can put on fine or coarse at pleasure, but like 
your spine and shoulders, that grow straight or 
crooked, as you carry yourself all the time. And 
let this be a caution, never to have manners too 
fine for everyday, or to try to be so nice that you 
can't carry it out. I mean, don't use too fine lan- 
guage, or try to be too sweet, or tire yourself out 
waiting on people, just to make an impression. 
Don't smile at each time you speak to anyone ; it 
looks silly, and you should allow somebody at 
home to make fun of you a good many times to 
break you of the habit. Smile when there is any- 
thing to smile at, but to grin or giggle when you 
say any common thing, like " It's a pleasant day," 
makes you look little better than a fool. 

When supper is served, a boy will look for some 
little girl to wait on, and bring her what she asks 
for, a plate of oysters or cup of beef tea, which is 
fashionable for parties now, or some cold tongue 
first, then cake and jelly with ice creams, and the 
grapes and candy afterwards, if there are such 
things. But a gentleman does not take his supper 
till he sees that whoever he waits on has all that 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

she wants first. At a sit-down supper people look 
out for themselves more. Don't try to eat all the 
good things you can, and don't carry off anything 
in your pockets to eat afterwards. Don't be 
greedy, and what is more, don't speak of it if you 
see anyone else greedy. Remember the good old 
rabbi who was awakened by one of his twelve sons 
saying, " Behold my eleven brethren lie sleeping, 
and I am the only one who wakens to praise and 
pray." " Son," said the wise father, " you had 
better be asleep, too, than wake to censure your 
brothers." No fault can be as bad as the feeling 
which is quick to see and speak of other people's 
wrong-doing. 

If asked to sing or play, and you can do so, 
oblige your friends without being urged ; but un- 
less very sure you can do well, allow no teasing to 
lead you to make a spectacle of yourself. Sing 
only one song or play one air at a time. If any- 
one else can take your place, let him do so, if not, 
chat or have a game between the music. Never 
do anything that looks like showing off, and the 
more you know the more gracefully this modesty 
will sit upon you. One never can be sure that the 
least educated and gifted of the party may not 
see and know more on some points than the 
brightest. Never allow compliments to draw you 
into speaking of yourself, and never repeat a com- 



ETIQUETTE— FOR THE GUESTS 

pliment, except in private to your mother or 
nearest friend, who will take more interest in you 
than you do in yourself. 

In the games and dances, don't choose the best 
partner always, but give the plain, uninteresting 
ones a chance, and help them to show their best. 
Don't allow anyone to laugh at your partner, for 
that is the next thing to laughing at you. Look 
at the impertinent boy or girl coolly and gravely, 
and the giggle will soon stop. 

Don't be the last one to go away from a party 
if you can help it. Find the lady of the house to 
say good night, and thank her for a pleasant eve- 
ning if you have found it so. Then, get your 
wraps, and say good night to those friends you 
meet on the way. There is no saying good-bye 
all around where there are many guests. If it is 
a small, intimate party, you shake hands and make 
your adieus to each. 

I was surprised to find that at the close of the 
last one of these papers, I had promised to give 
directions for behaving at a grand party. The 
less children know of grand parties the better, and 
the more they will enjoy such when they grow up. 
But these hints may help one enjoy an ordinary 
evening out, remembering always that " Politeness 
is good feeling set to rule." 



VII 

LITTLE GENTLEFOLKS 

"TF you please, Great-aunt Thorndike, what's 

■*■ a gentleman? " 

It was little Ralph's sweet voice which spoke, 
in the dusk, behind his aunt's chair, as she sat in 
the fire-light, with her lace-knitting flying in her 
slim, white fingers. Aunt Thorndike was a lady 
of the old school ; and who in all the house sat 
straighter and stepped lighter than she, with her 
keen wits, kind heart, and clever fingers, like an 
old fairy? 

" Why, Ralphie? " she asked, softly. 

" I hear so much about being a gentleman, and 
what belongs to a gentleman ; and in the book I 
was reading, it said, about a man I like, he was 
one of the truest gentlemen that ever lived. It 
sounds nice somehow." 

" So it is nice, Ralphie. The best thing that 
can be said of a man, or a boy, for that matter." 

" Tell me all about it ; what it is and what it 
isn't, so I can see if I could be one. Mamma said 



LITTLE GENTLEFOLKS 

nobody knew better what a gentleman is than you 
do, for your brothers were all gentlemen." 

" Bless the boy ! " said the aunt to herself, " is 
there any flattery sweeter than the flattery of chil- 
dren?" 

She bent down and gave a kiss to the fair hair 
against her knee, partly for the sake of the dear, 
kindly little head, and partly for its praise of the 
brave brothers she remembered so well. 

One had been an officer in the navy, and died in 
fight, "A man who never knew fear or wrong," his 
brother officers said. Another was one of the 
finest lawyers in his state, and one a sea captain ; 
but all honored and loved, with hearts as brave as 
they were clean and kind, and kinder never drew 
breath. 

"A gentle man," she began thoughtfully. " What 
does that mean, Ralph ? " 

" I know. The teacher said it was just what it 
sounds, a man who is gentle and nice in his ways, 
polite to the girls and old women, and never says 
rude words, nor tries to cheat in croquet or mar- 
bles. Is that all, auntie ? " 

" It doesn't all lie in being gentle," laughed the 
old lady, " nor yet in being a genteel man, as 
some folks think it does. It is more than being 
kind and polite, or nice in manners or clothes, 
though they all belong to it. It is, first of all, to 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

be a man — manly. At the root of the notion of 
a gentleman lies the idea of being a strong, useful, 
protecting man ; and nothing else has the stuff in 
it to make a gentleman. In the old time, when 
the world was divided into two classes, gentles 
and common people, there were very strict lines 
for the former." 

" Oh, if I could only find them now ! " cried 
Ralph. " The rules to make a gentleman ! Are 
they written anywhere? ' 

" They were never written, that I know of ; but 
they were handed down from father to son, and 
never laws were obeyed as strictly as these. We 
know enough of them to be sure that the standard 
of a gentleman in those days did not in many 
things differ from what it should be to-day. And 
there is no reason why a little boy should not 
carry in his heart as stainless a code of honor as a 
plumed and visored Knight of St. John." 

" There are no knights now," said Ralph, a little 
sadly. 

" I'm not so sure of that. Things go by work- 
ing, nowadays, more than by fighting ; but they 
call for the same knightly qualities of courage and 
endurance that rode forth with spear and crest to 
the field of battle. What do you think was a 
knight's first duty ? To fight for the true cross. 
The next was to serve his king and country. My 



LITTLE GENTLEFOLKS 

Ralph's work is the same to-day — always believing 
in God and his truth, and, because you believe in 
it and cannot help it, working for it and defending 
it. And, to the day of your death there will be 
something to do for your country. You must 
watch that bad principles do not creep in, or bad 
men get control, and you must count no tax of 
time or money too great to keep things what they 
should be for you and those who come after you. 
This will be your work before many years, even 
if you never have to go out with rifle and saber to 
really fight, as your brothers had to. When bad 
men or careless men say, as they are saying now 
about many things, ' This is not exactly what 
ought to be done — it is not doing fairly by what 
we ought to protect, but it is the easiest way to 
get along,' there must be one man to say, ' No, 
the right way is the easiest in the end, and the 
only way,' if it is only my little Ralph, larger 
grown. No matter if you are only one for the 
right. Say your word as becomes a man. The 
rest may see it and be ashamed ; but, at least, 
you will have your heart and your conscience 
clean. 

" The knight's vow was to succor all who were 
oppressed, to right all wrongs which he came 
across, and to help all who stood in need. If a 
knight came upon any deed of cruelty or injustice, 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

he could not say, ' It's no affair of mine — I won't 
interfere. I may get into trouble by it, and get 
hurt.' It was his particular business to interfere, 
and, when he saw a creature tortured, or found a 
captive in prison unlawfully, or knew of insult of- 
fered to a woman, a child's inheritance taken from 
it, or a child stolen from its parents, as happened 
in those cruel days, he was disgraced if he did 
not go at once, with his good lance and his men, 
and set things right. What he was not strong 
enough to do he besought his brother knights to 
aid him in doing ; and to refuse this appeal would 
have cost a knight his honors and his sovereign's 
favor. 

" For a man to draw back from danger, when 
called to it, was a disgrace ; to tell a lie was a deep 
disgrace ; to take a bribe, or allow himself to be 
influenced by fear or favor, was to be unworthy 
the spurs he wore, and the society of other 
knights. I don't see why you could not be a little 
knight of St. John, Ralph. 

" Every good man, every man who is any better 
than so much straw stuffed into men's clothes, 
feels these same duties binding on him, in some 
sort, to-day. To speak the truth, to protect the 
weak, to be loyal to one's country, and live up 
to his religious faith, to be brave, and do what is 
best without looking to see whether one is going 



LITTLE GENTLEFOLKS 

to make or lose by it, is just as much a gentleman's 
code now as it ever was ; and whoever falls short 
of this, no matter how fine and pleasing his dress 
and manners, is by so much not a gentleman." 

" How could I protect the weak? I'm such a 
little fellow !" 

" Not too little to see that neither you nor the 
other boys torment the old blind dog as he lies on 
the walk, not too little to pick up the bird fallen 
out of its nest, or to take a drowning fly out of 
the water, or to see that the rest do not run away 
from four-year-old Teddie and leave him crying 
when he wants to watch the game. You can pro- 
tect the weak by insisting that the boys play fair, 
so that the younger ones and the poor players get 
their share of fun, and never allowing anybody to 
snub or pick at another, to hurt his feelings, with- 
out taking his part. 

11 Be good to the animals and pets about you, 
that cannot help themselves. Don't drive the 
horse too fast when he has had a hard day's work, 
nor leave the dog and cat unfed or half fed, or 
the bird without water. They all depend on us 
for these things, and a gentleman neglects him- 
self before one of these dumb, patient creatures. 
How many times I have known your grandfather 
to get out of his bed in the middle of the night, 
to see that his cattle were sheltered from a 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

sudden storm, when farmers about left the poor 
things to shiver in the wet pastures all night. Your 
grandmother, too, was the kindest-hearted woman 
I ever knew. When your grandfather was away, 
the boys would sometimes forget to water one of 
the cows that was not with the rest ; but, tired 
with a busy day, and the care of her little chil- 
dren, she would get up at one o'clock at night, 
dress, and go down in the field with a pail of 
water in each hand for the poor thing that was 
lowing its heart away, parched with thirst. She 
was too tender-hearted to wake the boys, little 
fellows, sleeping soundly, and tired with work and 
play; but she could not rest in her own comfort- 
able bed till she was sure that all on her place 
were as well cared for as herself. 

" She was different enough from the man I 
heard once at his desk, considering whether he 
should send a check that he owed to a poor 
woman that day, or wait till it was convenient. 

" 'She wants the money, I suppose,' he was 
saying, ' but I shall have to draw another draft on 
the bank, and the cashier don't like to make out 
drafts so late. I guess I'll let it go. It will be 
just as good when it comes !' 

"So the poor woman had to wait two days without 
enough in the house to eat, because the man didn't 
want the bother of a few words with his cross 



LITTLE GENTLEFOLKS 

cashier. And he knew that the money was all 
she had to depend on, and she was in trouble for 
want of it. He was a kind man, too, in his way. 
When he had more than he wanted, and it came 
as easy as not, he wouldn't mind giving a friend a 
good many hundred dollars, which is more than 
some folks would do, if they had ten times more 
than they knew what to do with. But his was 
not the thorough, unselfish habit of a gentleman. 

" O, be kind, Ralph, as you grow up, and do 
the good that comes to your hand, never stopping 
because somebody else is not doing his part, or 
because you have done so much already, or be- 
cause you get few thanks for it. It isn't the bad 
things we have done in our lives that alone 
will trouble us when we look our lives over, so 
much as the good we might have done, and 
didn't. 

"You wouldn't stone a cat, and drown her 
kittens to torment her, but who let puss go mew- 
ing round the house that cold night last winter, 
and wouldn't get up from his storybook to let 
her in, when her kittens were freezing out in the 
loft ? You never made fun of Billy Sikes because 
he had to wear a shawl to school instead of an 
overcoat, rainy days ; but you never tried to get 
acquainted with him, or you might have known 
that his father was saving every cent to buy the 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

new books that the schoolboard ordered for his 
next class. And there were your old ones, that 
you had studied through, and that he could have 
used just as well as not ! I declare, Ralph, I 
cried when I found out from his mother that she 
went without medicine for her face-ache, to make 
up what was wanted. And your old books, and 
your cap and slate, would have saved those six 
dollars, and given so much more comfort to the 
family these hard times. 

" It is the fashion now to say that poor people 
had better starve than ask for help. People say so 
who never knew what it was themselves to go 
without a meal, or suffer a real want, in their 
lives. And Billy could not have asked if any of 
you boys had old books to spare, without some 
fine fellow dubbing him a pauper, I suppose ; but 
it puts a heavy responsibility on us who are able 
to help, if we don't find out who needs it, and see 
that it is given. 

" You had tickets last summer to the excursion, 
and couldn't go, so you threw them away. The 
little Wylies cried themselves to sleep because 
their mother couldn't afford to let them go, and 
we might have found it out if we had taken pains. 
When you are as old as I am, Ralph, you won't 
dare to throw away a chance of giving somebody 
a pleasure. 



LITTLE GENTLEFOLKS 

" Then a gentleman is true, true in meaning and 
intention as well as words. It is fashionable for 
people to profess great regard for truth, and feel 
wofully insulted if anyone dares question it, but 
isn't it seldom you can find anyone you can trust, 
whether he means to deceive or not ? It is the 
habit of coloring things that makes one a liar be- 
fore he knows it. It is so in school and out of it, 
with big folks and little ones. You want to be off 
with the boys playing, and you are not to go till 
your arithmetic lesson is learned. 

" 'Are you sure you can say that rule?' your 
mother asks, as you rush away. 

"'Yes, ma'am/ you say in a hurry, without 
thinking very much. 

" ' Sure? ' she says again, and this time you say 
1 Yes,' sharply, not exactly caring whether you 
quite know it or not. 

" Somebody gives you a bunch of flowers, and 
you come home late to tea, wondering what you 
will say to get off a scolding. A bright idea 
comes into your head as you walk in at the gate. 

" ' Mamma,' you cry, coming into the sitting- 
room eagerly, as if you expected a welcome, ' see 
what lovely flowers I have for you ! ' when, in fact, 
you never thought of giving them to her till you 
got home and then only as a peace offering. 

" Sammy Richards has drawn a clever picture, 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

and you want to say something very nice about 
it. 

" 'Auntie,' it is, ' Sammy has done the most 
wonderful thing ! I never saw such taste as he 
has. It's really remarkable.' 

" Now it's well done and pleasing, but not re- 
markable, or wonderful, and you don't feel that it 
is, but can't say as pleasant things as you wish 
without saying more than you mean. It's just 
exaggerating a little. And the next person says 
' wonderful,' too, and the boys echo what you say, 
and, before you know it, poor Sammy has such a 
dose of flattery that it's no wonder if his head is a 
bit turned, and you are thinking he needn't be so 
very conceited about it. 

" There's nothing like truth and sincerity for 
keeping the balance of good will. It is a hard 
lesson for little people to say no more than they 
think, and yet be always kind about it. 

" I remember, when I was a girl, an old English 
woman calling me to admire a bedquilt she had 
been piecing, which, to her, was the most wonder- 
ful thing in the world. The pink and purple 
blocks put my teeth on edge with their discord- 
ant colors, but she went on with her admiration, 
winding up with, ' Didn't I think it was pretty?' 

" I thought it was the ugliest thing I had ever 
seen, but, like a goose, not wanting to offend the 



LITTLE GENTLEFOLKS 

old creature, I said ' Yes.' And thinking of it 
makes me feel small to this day. 

" There was an up and down lie told about a 
bedquilt, not to displease an old woman whom I 
was willing to tease and poke fun at in all sorts of 
ways. I might have said : 

" ' Mrs. Simpson, your taste and mine don't ex- 
actly agree about shades ; I should like another 
color with the pink as well, but it is beautifully 
made,' and so saved her feelings and my own self- 
respect. 

"^The smaller a lie the worse one feels over it. 
The French are called the politest and most com- 
plimentary nation in the world, and have been 
called insincere ; but I have noticed, among all 
those I ever met, a singular care to be quite frank, 
while saying the kindest things ; and in this re- 
spect they excel our people. 

"A French gentleman, used to very fine music, 
was making a country call once, when a vain 
mother managed that her daughter should be 
asked to sing. The girl consented very good- 
naturedly, and sang, vilely enough. The friends 
turned to hear what the gentleman would say, 
expecting praise of course, while I listened, won- 
dering what he could possibly find to say for such 
very poor music. 

" I never shall forget how gracefully he man- 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

aged it. He did not say one word about the 
music at all, but, i Miss Blank, your amiability in 
playing does credit to your execution ; and I wish 
every singer had it, for it would lend charm to 
greater talents.' 

" It was so kindly said it satisfied the feelings of 
mother and daughter ; and, if the silly girl was 
puffed up by vain compliments to think herself a 
singer, here was one person with too much respect 
for her and himself to lend a hand in it. 

" You see, a gentleman must have courage. 
One can't speak the truth in small matters without 
it, though, if people saw the trouble that comes 
from the want of it, they would be a great deal 
more afraid of not telling it. 

"And, Ralph, remember that a half truth is 
worse than a lie. 

"Alfred's mother told him not to go to Dick 
Hassell's house, for he was a bad boy, and she 
didn't want him to associate with such fellows. 

"Alfred came home one day from the direction 
of the Hassells', and his mother asked him, ' Have 
you been to see Dick?' 

" Alfred said ' No,' as brave as you please, but 
I heard him telling you boys afterward that he 
didn't go to see Dick, but just strolled along that 
way, and Dick came out, and traded three lead 
pencils and a shirt stud for his new knife. 



LITTLE GENTLEFOLKS 

" You know it turned out afterward that the 
shirt stud was stolen from his father's dressing 
case. Dick was a very bad boy, but Alfred was 
quite as mean to pass off such a miserable false- 
hood on his mother. People usually tell lies to 
those they are most bound to respect and love. 
One thing ought to keep you from falsehood, if 
nothing else will : that there is nothing in the 
world so useless as a lie, for it is sure to be found 
out sooner or later. 

" Ralph, if you get into trouble, either tell the 
truth about it, or hold your tongue. It takes 
courage and endurance to do so, it is true, and is 
an accomplishment that many people would give 
fortunes to possess; but I give it to you as a cheap 
recipe for making the best of a bad matter." 

"What must I do when people ask me ques- 
tions they have no business to? One day Mrs. 
Hassell asked me if my sister was going to be 
married ; and I knew mamma wouldn't wish me to 
tell her, and I couldn't say yes, and I didn't want 
to tell a story, or say it was none of her business, 
and I didn't know what to do, so I ran away," 
said poor little Ralph, hanging his honest head. 

"You might have done worse, Ralphie. You 
are not obliged to answer impertinent questions at 
all. You can't use your wits to better advantage 
than to make answers which, while they don't 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

give any satisfaction, are droll enough to carry 
themselves off. A gentleman never answers an 
impertinent question, whether he cares about the 
matter or not ; but he turns it off in some light 
way, without offense. When you are quizzed 
about family matters it is a good answer to say, 
'Ask my mother and she'll tell you.' That's al- 
ways a safe one for a child, and nobody can find 
fault with it for being disrespectful. You see it 
takes courage in this world, Ralphie, to ' hold 
your own,' as folks say. Your opinions, your se- 
crets, your affairs, are your own, and nobody has 
the right to meddle with them, except your father 
and mother, or those who stand in their place to 
you. 

"A gentleman takes care of his own rights as 
well as if they were another's. Giving them up 
when there is occasion, is very different from be- 
ing crowded out of them because you are afraid 
to defend them. You should learn how to take 
care of your own little rights in playground or 
school ; assert them, and, what's more, try your 
best, and, if it comes to that, fight your best to 
keep them. 

"There are worse faults a boy can commit than 
a square fight for just cause. There is enough 
shirking in this world, and yielding rights, by good 
people who ought to know better, because they 



LITTLE GENTLEFOLKS 

will give away not only their own, but what be- 
longs to others, because they are afraid to fight 
evil. We want in our boys the spirit that knows 
how to give up when it is wrong, but holds on 
when it is right, and never knows when it is 
beaten. 

" To be brave, to speak the truth, to be kind, 
and loyal to his country and to his God, this is 
the duty of a gentleman, Ralph. Is there any- 
thing here you cannot perform?" 



VIII 

MISS charity's lady 

"HTNiss Charity Winchester was an old-fash- 
*■ 4-y ioned lady, whom you would have liked 
very much to visit, for her beautiful old house and 
rose garden, and the delightful way in which every 
body was treated there. You would have dreaded 
her for her keen eyes that went right through you 
at first sight, and her sarcastic lip, that never cared 
whether you belonged to one of the leading fam- 
ilies in town, or were everywhere admired for 
your beautiful manners, or if you won the first 
prize at commencement, or for any of these things 
which young ladies give themselves airs about. 

If you used fashionable slang, or said things 
without exactly meaning them, the fine old eyes 
that were so clear and handsome would grow 
hawkish, and you were not likely to accept an in- 
vitation to Summer-rest, her lovely place, again, in 
a hurry. People either liked or disliked Miss 
Charity very much, but, as she didn't care an atom 
for either, they were usually very glad of her 
civility. 



MISS CHARITIES LADT 

" I always thought Cornelia Dyce the most gen- 
erous creature in existence," a girl was saying 
once, " and now I know it." 

" Because she was willing to give ever so many 
cow and duck and dog and goose patterns for cot- 
ton flannel, in exchange for monthly rose cuttings 
you didn't know what to do with?" asked Miss 
Winchester, in her cool way. " Well, there's a 
pair of you, but I never knew generosity going so 
cheap before." 

" Fanny Doremus is going to give me her re- 
cipe for making those chocolate eclairs, and one 
for graham gems, and they're both splendid ! " a 
luckless one said, another time, in her hearing. 

" For Heaven's sake don't try them on us 
then ! " Miss Charity begged. " I'd rather have 
something we could eat ! " 

The young lady looked questions. 

" If it's a sunset baked, or a chip diamond with 
sifted sugar, it would be apt to disagree with us 
old people. Gems and splendors sound like hard 
living ! " 

" What would you say ? " asked the fair one, 
rather sullenly. " I don't know what to call 
those graham things." 

" They would pass for muffins with anybody 
who had ever seen a muffin before, provided they 
weren't too tough. If you can get a good recipe 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

for chocolate eclairs you will do well. But you 
poor things are so deep in German and lectures 
on Chaucer you can't be expected to learn the 
proper names for common things." 

Then Mrs. Lavine, who edited the " Home Cir- 
cle " for a weekly newspaper, and always talked 
with a gush, came over one day, in her free and 
easy way, and, finding the doors open, walked 
through into the dining room with, — 

" Miss Charity, I've brought you a mess of peas 
from our own garden." 

You should have seen the aghast look on Miss 
Winchester's polite face, for she was always fear- 
fully polite to Mrs. Lavine. " What do you ex- 
pect me to do with them?" she asked innocently. 

"Why, eat them, to be sure. Don't you like 
peas? " 

"Yes," hesitating. "But you said they were 
in a mess ! " with slight disgust. 

" Pshaw ! I brought you a pan of peas, as nice 
as ever you saw," said Mrs. Lavine, looking for a 
place to sit down. 

" Oh, if you brought me some peas I'm sure it 
ought to be kind of you ; but when you said a mess 
I thought you meant something we couldn't eat, 
and it nearly took my stomach away. Now, Mrs. 
Lavine, why don't you take these peas over to 
Mrs. Haight, who has no garden ? She would be 



MISS CHARITY'S LADT 

very glad of them, and would take your neighbor- 
liness at its full value all the same." 

" Miss Winchester ! how dared you ? " I asked, 
like a fool, after the visitor took herself and her 
peas away. 

" How could I go on hearing her talk about 
messes till she sickened me ? I remembered my 
mother turning away a governess, who talked Span- 
ish and Latin like a grammar, because she would 
use such words. Mother said we might do with- 
out another language, but it was important we 
should know how to use our own as ladies ought 
to." 

" But you refused her peas ? " 

" I don't like the woman. She is artful, and I 
don't want to neighbor with her. Would you 
have me take anything from her, so that she could 
make another advance on the strength of it ? I 
am the older woman, and have lived here years 
longer. Her part was to wait for my civilities, 
not to thrust hers on me. I always hate new 
people who come with a gift in their hands. I 
want to see whether I like them enough to take 
their favors." 

" It was such a little thing ! " I pleaded, for if she 
tolerated you at all, Miss Winchester liked great 
plainness of speech. " I was afraid you hurt her 
feelings." 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

" There is great talk of hurting people's feelings 
nowadays, when it's only their vanity. Do you 
suppose I would have sent her away so if she came 
out of good will ? She was rude to old Mrs. Pet- 
tel the only time I called on her, and quite 
slighted the old lady to be polite to me. I always 
feel as if I should be getting the snubs if my 
name didn't happen to be Winchester, and my 
house quite as big as it is. We were never al- 
lowed to eat salt with a snob, or anyone we 
couldn't invite to our houses for the love of seeing 
them." 

"Aren't you too severe, Miss Winchester?" 

" Is it severe to be sincere, Matilda ? How do you 
feel about it ? Because, if you like, I shall have to 
begin to flatter you to the blush. I could do it, you 
know." 

" It is so hard to be impolitely sincere to a 
lady." 

" Lady ! humph !" and Miss Charity was dumb 
over the teaspoons she was counting. 

" Don't you call Mrs. Lavine a lady?" 

"As you are one by bringing up, and won't re- 
peat what's said to you, frankly, I don't find her 
one. She is a woman girls like, because she is 
fond of petting everybody, and talks very sweetly 
about very fine things, and she dresses correctly ; 
but her enthusiasm don't sound real. A lady 



MISS CHARITT'S LADT 

may wear imitation lace for covenience, but she 
never airs imitation sentiment." 

" I wish I could know what you consider a 
lady." 

" I might begin by telling you what she isn't, 
and what she doesn't do. She doesn't walk with- 
out knocking into the house of a woman she has 
only seen once at her own house, even if they 
have met at parties. She won't call anyone by 
Christian name till she is asked to take the privi- 
lege. And she won't make advances where it is 
her place to wait. You modern girls have such 
notions of freedom, that you are only content with 
upsetting things, and taking liberties, and you 
don't all outgrow it as women. I have heard 
boarding-school girls chaff a college president, and 
quiz a noted but nervous foreign musician, and say 
pert things to a great senator, imagining they did 
themselves credit, and repeat their sauciness after- 
ward with pride. 

" ' Professor,' one of them said, with a flippant 
air for which her mother ought to have taken her 
home at once, ' isn't it tiresome to know as much 
as you do, and always have to carry it about with 
you ? ' 

" ' He was getting borous about his everlasting 
rocks,' she explained, in telling the story, ' and I 
gave him notice to quit, as none of the rest dared to.' 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

" ' I made him blush,' another boasted, after a 
pert repartee to a lawyer of twice her years. 

" ' Was he blushing at you or for you ? ' one of 
the others had the sense to retort. 

" Don't you hear of this sort of girl everywhere ? 
There are plenty with brains and a fair education, 
learned in their neighbors' conceit, who know 
nothing themselves, perhaps with a talent for art, 
but without a tithe of good breeding, who carry 
their offensive, stupid smartness wherever they go. 
They will invite a Grand Duke to skate with them, 
write to Bismarck for his autograph, say saucy 
things to a President, who usually tries to smile as 
if he liked it, ' answer back ' the Holy Father him- 
self when they get a presentation, and write letters 
to the newspapers about it afterward. All which 
is beneath contempt. 

" They are no less condescending to their hum- 
ble neighbors. No regard seems worth their 
while unless it is taken by audacity. ' I found 
the door of your heart open,' one of the charming 
minxes, whom I was beginning to tolerate, said to 
me once. ' I walked in without knocking, and I 
mean to stay.' 

" ' I'm determined you shall be devoted to me,' 
another said, setting her lips and looking straight 
into my face with her lovely blue eyes. This 
might be very nice to a schoolboy, or a young 



MISS CHARITY'S LADT 

idiot who didn't know his or her own mind, but 
to make sayings like this her stock in trade, ren- 
ders a girl tiresome beyond relief. I'd as lief see a. 
thunderstorm coming as one of these assured and 
overcoming chits, who is always certain that with 
her looks and position, and her condescension, she 
can make her civilities irresistible." 

" Miss Winchester, what is the secret of being 
a lady ? Is it to be true and fearless like a man, 
or to be just, or polite and charitable, and always 
giving up one's self for others?" 

Miss Winchester was darning a table cloth. She 
always did the nice parts of housekeeping, to 
steady her nerves, she said, and she took time to 
answer. 

" The truest ladies I ever knew had two things 
so blended that one never knew which to be surest 
of, their sincerity or their kindness. I never saw 
a lady, whether she was a girl or a grown woman, 
who had not the faculty a wise writer calls a ' gen- 
ius for loving.' It was born in them, and grew 
with them. It is not that kind of ' I don't know 
what to do with myself ' feeling, that makes girls 
throw their arms round the nearest friend and 
smother her with kisses, that is feigning pretty 
jealousies of others, and saying, ' I wish you could 
love me,' when one isn't in a mood for sweet stuff. 
The most loving-hearted girls don't show their 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

feelings by any means. They do not love to kiss, 
or parade affection, but they are kind, O ! so kind, 
to their last breath and drop of strength, to those 
who need and deserve their care. Kind with the 
kindness that makes one wise for others' happi- 
ness, so that mother looks into the mending bas- 
ket to find that troublesome torn shirt-sleeve made 
whole, and the apron finished for Bobby, and 
father has the room quiet for a long evening, when 
he wants to read the debates, or to make calcula- 
tions, and Jennie finds her rain-spoiled dress, 
sponged and ironed, fresh in the wardrobe, and 
Mrs. Brown, over the way, sees the children taken 
out of the house when she has a racking headache, 
and the teacher knows who will run up the 
flounces and sew on buttons for the new suit she 
is hurrying to make out of school hours. There 
is nothing too homely or distasteful for this sort 
of girl to do, and she might take for her signature 
what I saw once in a kind letter of Elizabeth 
Stoddard's, the novelist, ' Yours, to serve.' The 
kisses and the love-making may be shy enough 
with her, but the kindness is for everybody, and 
it runs very deep. Nothing draws on her help and 
sympathy so much as to need it most, to be with- 
out interest or attraction in any way. 

" The best recipe for going through life in an 
exquisite way, with beautiful manners, is to feel 



MISS CHARITY'S LADT 

that everybody, no matter how rich or how poor, 
needs all the kindness they can get from others in 
the world. The greatest praise written of Ma- 
dame Recamier, the most beautiful woman and 
complete lady of her own or any other known 
time, was this," and Miss Winchester's face soft- 
ened, and her voice fell to a moving key, as she 
repeated softly the words I afterward saw copied 
in an old, black manuscript book of hers, and knew 
that she had loved them. " ' Disgrace and mis- 
fortune had for Madame Recamier the same sort 
of attraction that favor and success usually have 
for vulgar souls.' " 

There was the nature of a great lady ! 

" Miss Winchester," I said, suddenly, " is that 
the reason you visit that queer, vulgar Mrs. Red- 
ward, who lives in such a scrambly sort of way 
that nobody cares to go near her?" 

" No, indeed ! " she said, in utter surprise. " Mrs. 
Redward is one of the most interesting women I 
know. Trying to take care of six children, alone, 
with only her painting to depend on, worrying 
about rent and coal and bills, sitting up nights to do 
the sewing because she can't afford to pay these 
high seamstress' prices. No wonder she seems 
hard and coarse. She says she has had to let the 
bark grow to keep her from getting rasped to 
death. She's as true as steel. She never would 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

court me a bit, never pretended to like me till we 
found each other out, and I know we never told 
each other ' I love you,' in the world, but there 
isn't a woman who does me so much good as that 
cross, brave, kind, scolding creature. Call her un- 
refined ? All my new books go over to her, and 
come back without a mark of wear. I send her 
roses, and she sits up at night after the rest are 
asleep to enjoy them — they rest her so. And, 
poor and overworked as she is, she always has a 
hand out for somebody worse off. Uninteresting! 
I wonder at you ! " 

Then / wondered if Miss Winchester, with her 
satin, and lightning eyes, had not something of 
Madame Recamier's sympathy for misfortune, and 
I thought the aprons she had been sewing on were 
the same check as those the little Redward boys 
wore. At the same time came a thought of that 
clumsy, " bounceable " Mary Tucker, who never 
seemed to know how to behave when anyone 
took notice of her, and whom we snubbed and 
passed by at school continually, till the poor girl 
moped in a settled disgrace. " She never had any 
bringing up," we said, but why couldn't we re- 
member that, and let her associate with us till she 
got used to decent manners? 



IX 

MISS charity's lady, again 

TJLJe were a high and mighty set of girls in 
**** Havenedge, Miss Charity said, of good fami- 
ly, and prided ourselves on our families and bringing 
up not more than our ability to see into and through 
everything in the world. This quickness and sensi- 
bility we felt came of " race," and with it an inbred 
propriety and principle that made it next to im- 
possible that one of our girls could do anything 
really to blame. Of course, we had the high- 
spirited faults that belong to generous natures, 
and rather prided ourselves on them, as they 
were not common failings. There was a large 
circle of " good people " in town, the Robbins, 
who came of old East India merchants, and had a 
wide house with an observatory, where the owners 
used to go and watch their ships coming in after 
a voyage, and the house was full of Indian, China 
and teakwood furniture, and ivory carvings and 
silks and crapes hidden away in deep cabinets, 
and things went on in an easy handsome fashion, 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

very pleasant to see. There were the minister's 
daughters, the Chauncys, the most beautiful girls 
in the county, whose mother was descended from 
a great beauty of colonial times, and was the finest 
lady in Havenedge herself. They were not the 
richest family in town, but they made it up in 
being more elegant and accomplished than any- 
body else, so that it was quite a favor to be ad- 
mitted to their circle. And there was Mrs. Waite, 
the senator's widow, whose daughter Henrietta, 
with her flashing brown eyes and thick hair, was 
like a very imperious young man in girl's dress, 
and who was always doing unheard of things in the 
most unconscious way. There were Commodore 
Bevan's young ladies, with their English mother, 
perfect pinks of manners, and, like all the navy 
people, disposed to hold themselves for all they 
were worth. And the Stuart Primes, Bowdoin 
College people, with a fortune fallen to them, 
which they carried as if born to an earldom at 
least. My father was Chief Justice, and I went 
everywhere, especially as my great, great grand- 
father happened to be one of those poor gentle- 
folks who came over here in 1600 to make a liv- 
ing, as he couldn't in England. But we never think 
of those drawbacks now. 

We girls all went to a select school, where there 
was fully as much attention paid to our sitting 



MISS CHARITY'S LADT, AGAIN 

and standing and hemstitching and embroidery, as 
there was to our history and translation, in which 
we were obliged to be very thorough, so that you 
may believe we had an education to be glad of. 
We were foolish enough to be proud of it, and to 
value ourselves on our thorough studies and ac- 
complishments, as what people of ordinary minds 
and sensibilities never could pretend to. We 
drew and painted in water colors, for each other's 
albums, and embroidered chairs in fine wool, not 
the coarse Berlin work you waste your time with 
nowadays, and we copied verses in delicate regu- 
lar hands, and transferred lace, and read Italian 
and sketched, and made our own linen, in the 
most elegant and particular fashion. One thing 
was different from the habits of young ladies now ; 
we were never idle an instant. There were fewer 
novels and papers to read, and less of this endless 
rehearsing and planning, without which you can 
get nothing done, and we were never so tired, after 
planning a charity concert or lawn party, that 
we had to gossip a whole evening with our hands 
folded. When we ran in to see each other, or 
spent the afternoon in conclave, out came the 
scrap of embroidery, or the fancy knitting, or the 
chainweaving, and the pretty work went on as fast 
as our tongues. How we looked down on people 
who were not so judicious and clever as ourselves ! 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

It was all right, and a very good example, to be 
busy and tasteful, and it is a bad falling off that 
girls are not so thrifty any more, but there was no 
occasion for us to be proud of our good habits. 
How could we have helped being what we were, 
with mothers and teachers, and all that care and 
money could do for us ? 

Mrs. Acton, our teacher, was very particular 
whom she admitted to her school, and we were 
curious to see the new scholar coming in April. 
She was a niece of Mrs. Ellis, who lived in the 
large house overlooking the bay, hidden from the 
road by its thicket of a flower garden. Our mothers 
remembered Mrs. Ellis' sister, the delicate, de- 
voted woman who left the city with her bankrupt 
husband, and went to live with him on a farm in 
Maine, away from anybody, to be out of sight of 
friends who had known them in better days. 
They had never done well, and Mrs. Ellis, child- 
less, widowed and alone, offered to take the sec- 
ond daughter and educate her. The little town 
where the girl came from was too small to be down 
on the map, and Mrs. Ellis mentioned, in a call 
on my mother, that Hannah had never attended 
any school save a district school in the winter. 
We would hardly have liked such a companion on 
any other account, but as Mrs. Ellis' niece, and 
coming from one of the best families in town, we 



MISS CHARITY'S LADT, AGAIN 

could do no less than admit her and make her 
welcome. Our mothers had a kindness for the 
girl from the beginning, as a daughter of a school- 
mate whom they dearly loved in the old days, and 
her want of advantages with them was only a rea- 
son for more tenderness when they looked at their 
own favored girls. 

But of all unpleasant impressions, that girl had 
the luck to carry the worst when we saw her. 
She was larger than any of us, tall, long-armed, 
with a figure that was all corners, and took up more 
room than anyone else, because she never knew 
what to do with her hands and feet. It seemed, 
we said, as if she had always lived out of doors. 
She was slow, awkward, and because she was des- 
perately afraid of doing the wrong thing, and 
didn't know what was. right, she managed to get 
in the way more, and make worse blunders than 
anybody I ever saw. She had been brought up in 
a rude, back-country place, with a discouraged, 
shiftless father, who never wanted his children to 
go into society as they might have done, which 
would have worn a little of the uncouthness off ; 
and the mother was too weak and overworked to 
do more than sigh over the privileges her children 
were denied. 

My mother invited her one evening to meet 
some of the other girls, and as it was frosty we 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

had the last molasses candy of the season for a 
treat, brought round about eight o'clock, cut up 
like caramel, in an old China plate. Hannah had 
been shy all the evening, not venturing out of her 
seat, but mother was talking to her by the fire, 
and she was getting on well enough till the candy 
came. She didn't know what to do with it. It 
was too hard to nibble, as she tried at first ; then, 
seeing that the rest of us popped the bits into our 
mouths whole, she did the same, but at first she 
was afraid to open her mouth wide enough for it, 
and once in, a dreadful spasm of nervousness, 
bashfulness and awkwardness came over her, and 
the candy stuck in her teeth, and she sat, feeling 
as if she couldn't move her jaws, in an agony of 
embarrassment. Don't laugh, for this is a real 
thing I'm telling, and it was no laughing matter 
to poor Hannah. Mother didn't notice, but chatted 
away over her red knitting, once in awhile waiting 
for an answer. For awhile the unlucky girl made 
nods and mumbles, though she knew it was rude, 
and mother noticed, but passed it over as bashful- 
ness. At last, however, came a question which 
required an answer. Mother waited, looking di- 
rectly at Hannah, still dumb with the molasses 
candy. She tried to choke it down, tried to £peak 
in spite of it, but her mouth was paralyzed with 
fright ; she could only shake her head and point 



MISS CHARITT'S LADT, AGAIN 

to her lips in mute distress. Mother could not 
understand at all, but, like the true lady she was, 
saw that something mortified the poor girl, and 
she went on as if nothing was amiss, taking care not 
to ask questions till Hannah spoke of her own ac- 
cord. The dreadful candy melted, of course, in 
time, and the big child of eighteen confessed, 
" The candy stuck so, I couldn't speak." Blunt, 
wasn't it ? but it came with such frankness, and 
honest blushes, that it gave mother a sort of pity 
for the innocent, clumsy creature. That was only 
one of her blunders. She didn't seem to know what 
to say to the simplest questions, and after a long 
pause, in which she seemed to be making up some 
fine speech, would utter the flattest, stupidest re- 
plies that made one soon give over trying to talk 
to her. She was not a pleasant neighbor in school, 
she took up so much room, and would lean against 
one in class without knowing it, and her warm 
weight was always drooping forward, or " lopping 
round," as country folks say, and she took her 
handkerchief out in the most unconcerned way on 
the least occasion, and coughed and sneezed so, 
without the least restraint, that we took quite a 
prejudice against her. We were trained to be dis- 
creet about these necessary things, and never 
to take out a handkerchief, except in private, 
and if a cough or sneeze could not be stifled, 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

to take it and ourselves out of the way at 
once. 

We were more particular and intolerant ab^ut 
these nice points then than we were when quite 
grown, for children and girls are often less able to 
make allowance than older persons who know how 
easy it is to offend. Gradually we slighted the girl 
and shook her off, in a way that we thought quite 
justifiable. She lived among us but not of us, 
and in her backwoods life I doubt if she was so 
thoroughly left to herself. We could not help it, 
we agreed, we could not associate with anyone so 
deficient, and with whom there could not be the 
slightest sympathy, or liking in common. She 
was so childish, or else so serious about nothing. 
We handed round the very original remark she 
made to one of us once, when we went to dine with 
Mrs. Ellis. There was company from Litchfield, 
and we had been airing our happiest manners and 
most elegant ways, for we had our assortment, 
manners for relations, and for school, and for 
strangers, though we were always strictly well- 
behaved girls, I hope, or had the name of being 
so. Hannah sat quite crushed and silent through 
the dinner, doing everything in her plain matter- 
of-fact way, with no air at all, and taking a second 
plate of pudding, which none of us would have 
done for the world. It would look as if we cared 



MISS CHARITT'S LADT, AGAIN 

for eating, and nothing was so unbecoming to a 
young lady. After dinner she went into the par- 
lor with the rest of us, and took her seat at once 
in the bay window, behind the curtain, a habit 
which we disliked especially, it looked so shy, or 
so sly, we could not quite tell which. Why couldn't 
she exert herself a little, and be sociable like other 
folks ? It was unkind, putting all the burden of 
entertaining her on some one else all the time. 
Or if she wanted to hear and criticise without be- 
ing seen, that spoiled any good time where she 
might be. After a while I stole up to her corner 
to look out on the bay where the crescent moon 
was hanging, clear and lovely. 

" Haven't you anything to say, Hannah?" I 
said, to shake her up, as we phrased it. 

She made an effort to rouse herself, seemed to 
search her wits, and tried two or three times to 
open her mouth. At last: 

"Are — you — fond — of — the — moon ?" she asked, 
in such a dry tone that it seemed to me as if she 
was offering it to me like cheese. 

" No, thank you," I said, passing my fine 
scented handkerchief over my lips, to brush away 
the disagreeable idea by its fragrance, " unless it 
is with apple pie." 

She saw the point in a moment. She grew 
more chalky pale, and her eyes fixed themselves 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

on my pretty handkerchief, with an expression 
more like a dead fish, I thought, than ever. I 
hurried away, but some one else had seen the 
look on Hannah's face, and felt moved to pity. 

Lucy Alvord, our finely trained Lucy, so arch, 
girlish, womanly, so graceful in company — I don't 
always call it "society," when I think of those 
times, — so accomplished, so simple and quick to 
divine the feelings of those about her, caught that 
sad look. She saw it wander, as if fascinated, to 
the puffs and bows of my pretty rose-colored 
dress, and glance at her own plain dark one, as 
nice as mine, for Mrs. Ellis dressed her, but with- 
out any of those gayeties girls delight in ; which, 
the dressmaker said, really didn't seem to be in 
her style at all. Then Hannah fixed her hands 
primly in her lap, and went on with her dull 
amusement, looking out of the window. In a 
few minutes she opened aside window and slipped 
out, and Lucy stole after her. 

She went off to the foot of the garden, farthest 
from the house, and hidden from it by tall shrubs, 
where the pale roses were sweet in the evening 
light. Lucy stopped behind a trellis and watched 
her, not unkindly. The strange girl put her head 
down against the stone coping of the wall, and 
kept it there the longest while hidden on her arm. 
She did not cry, and when she lifted it there 



MISS CHARITY'S LADT, AGAIN 

were no traces of tears, only a wistful regret and 
patience, as if she had taken a resolve to carry her 
heavy trouble without complaining. Then she 
went softy about the walk, piping to some young 
birds in a tree that seemed to know her and allow 
her to feed them, and petting the house cat which 
came out after her and rubbed against her dress. 

"You don't mind, old Kitty, do you?" she said, 
aloud, lifting it to stroke it and lay her cheek 
against its soft fur. " My one friend," she said in 
the same patient, simple way, walking up and 
down with it, stopping to smell the roses and kiss 
the sweetest of them, as if she were paying them 
homage. 

She was another creature, in this lonely corner 
of the garden, alone, as she fancied. Her move- 
ments, commonly so uncertain and heavy, were 
gentle and smooth, her face sad, with the shadow 
yet resting on it, but clear of being watched or 
observed, and the way she bent to the cat or the 
roses had a homely grace as far from coarseness 
as it was from elegance. To stay watching her a 
single instant longer, when she thought herself 
alone, would have been unpardonable in Lucy's 
eyes, and she stole upon her delicately, shaking a 
rose over her head in girlish fashion. 

" Guess who holds the rose?" she cried softly. 

Hannah turned, and the light was dying out of 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

her face, but Lucy was determined not to lose it 
if she could help it. There was something in- 
teresting about the Ellis girl, after all. She had 
feelings, probably, being human, and might feel 
as well as finer people when she had pins stuck 
into her. Her manner was nice and kind when 
she was by herself, and perhaps there might be 
something to her after all 

So Lucy tried a little charm she had, that had 
been known before to drive bashfulness away, 
and thaw frozen natures. It was a very un- 
conscious secret. She only treated people just 
like herself, in a quiet matter-of-course way, not 
familiar, but as if she had been on speaking terms 
with them all her life. It worked well now, for 
Hannah found she was being talked to without 
the trouble of having to answer, till she forgot her 
dread. 

" Let's sit down on this wall, and watch the 
ships a minute. Won't you spoil your dress if you 
don't lift it ? " gathering her own skirts up daintily, 
as she sprang to her place. " I like to see the 
white edging peep out under a dress, so ladyish 
and neat. Mother says I think more of my white 
skirts than I do of my dresses." 

She said it to make talk, more than anything 
else, but the next minute she was sorry, when 
she saw how very plain Hannah's skirts were, 



MISS CHARITY'S LADT, AGAIN 

with none of the frills and pearled tatting that 
we delighted in. She turned the talk as quickly 
as she could, making a note, however, for Hannah's 
benefit. She gathered roses growing over the 
wall, and put one in her hair with a turn of the 
hand, and offered some to Hannah. She drew 
back. 

" Not for me. They will do for you, but they 
wouldn't for me." 

''Why not for you as well as for me?" asked 
Lucy, wondering. 

" I never can bear to wear roses," Hannah 
owned, dropping her voice, " I'm so dreadfully 
plain." 

" Nonsense," said Lucy, — she could say " non- 
sense " in the sweetest tender way — " nobody is 
plain, unless they allow themselves to be. You 
don't know yourself when you say so. I'll show 
you the difference ; let me loosen this hair- 
there !" and a warm deep pink rose was hanging 
from a braid behind Hannah's ears, and another 
at her throat. It was a touch that made her 
look girlish and fresh, with the color rising in 
her cheeks at the daring, and call attention to 
herself. 

"Aren't you coming in?" said Lucy, rising to 
go. " Old Mrs. Ward was saying she knew your 
mother years ago, and hadn't had a chance to 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

speak to you. It would be a charity for you to 
go and make yourself pleasant to her." 

Hannah looked amazed at the idea of her mak- 
ing herself agreeable to anybody. 

" I never know what to say to anyone," she 
confessed. 

"Just go and sit down by her, the first chance, 
and tell her Lucy Alvord said she was an old 
friend of my mother's, and I wished she would let 
me know her too. I should say I knew all there 
was to be said about my mother now, but I wanted 
something fresh about her, such as Mrs. Ward 
could give me. It wouldn't be pleasant to re- 
mind her of her age by saying, as a girl did once, 
she wanted some old news of her mother. Then 
I might go on talking, I should think, about fif- 
teen minutes, with that little send-off, and if I 
didn't ask her questions in a string, or act as if I 
wanted to get away, and let her talk all she 
wished without interrupting her, she would go 
away feeling that I was a very agreeable young 
lady. Only I should tell her something to make 
her laugh, for old ladies like to have young ones 
amuse them, and they dearly love funny stories." 

" I wish somebody was always by to tell me 
what to say," said Hannah, ruefully. "I don't 
know what would be interesting, and I get 
nervous and my wits fly, and I'm just as likely as 



MISS CHARITY'S LADT, AGAIN 

not to say the first stupid, foolish thing that comes 
into my head." 

" Don't you ever have brilliant conversations 
with yourself, afterwards, Hannah," asked Lucy 
gravely, " and think of all the smart things you 
might have said, and feel so sorry you can't try 
over again ? I often do, but it will come out 
sooner or later, and it will with you. Well, we're 
not that sort of people who, the more they talk, 
the less they say." 

This whimsical bit of consolation did Hannah a 
world of good, as nonsense often does, where 
sober reason fails. She raised courage to sit down 
by Mrs. Ward, and though she sat in a heap, and 
joined her hands together as if they couldn't lie 
any other way, still it was a beginning, and she 
felt greatly encouraged about it. For once in 
her life, she had known exactly what to do, and 
felt sure she was doing it, which settles nerves 
and fidgets better than anything. 

The next day, Lucy went over to the Ellis 
garden, for a chat and lounge on the stone wall, 
which she declared was pleasanter than their own, 
at least she professed to want a change of air. 
And as she had a new pattern for skirt trimming, 
very pretty and very easy, it was natural she 
should offer to show Hannah how to make it, and 
propose that they should begin a piece at the 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

same time. Hannah's hands were, not to say 
soiled, but tinged from the slate in school. 

" I want to show you some of cousin Margaret's 
work," said the wise Lucy. " She always has her 
work so white, it looks as nice as when it first 
came off the spool. I'm trying to keep mine so. 
Here is the first piece I ever did. Mother makes 
me keep it, to show how work ought not to look," 
and she held up a discolored bit that would tempt 
no one to handle it. 

" I never did much fancy work," said Hannah 
ruefully, " but I never could keep it nice." 

" Margaret has let me into the secret of it. 
You want to wash your hands every time you sit 
down to work, with nail brush and soap, and keep 
the thread and work in a clean handkerchief, and 
when your hands grow moist, rub them with a 
few drops of cologne, or dust them with French 
powder." 

The hint was not lost on Hannah, whose hands 
after that were scrupulously and delightfully clean, 
a beauty school girls cannot always boast. 

"Have many of the girls called on you yet? " 
Lucy asked, when they were deep in picot and 
pearl stitch. " I'm afraid you find it lonesome — 
in Deephaven." 

" I suppose they don't care to call on me," 
Hannah said, ingenuously. ^ I know I'm differ- 



MISS CHARITT'S LADT, AGAIN 

ent from the girls here, and I don't expect it. 
But it is very dull." 

" How do you mean you are different ? " asked 
Lucy softly. 

" You can see, can't you ? I'm awkward and 
queer," said Hannah, looking up with a hope of 
contradiction in her eyes. It was a pardonable 
weakness, if it could be called so hard a name. 

Brave Lucy. She was the kindest soul that 
ever breathed, but she could not palter with a 
fact or insult Hannah's good sense by denying 
what was too plainly true. She hesitated a min- 
ute, but the words came as a matter of course. 

" You do act queerly, sometimes, but I don't 
know anything easier than for you to learn to be 
as nice as anybody." 

It was said so simply that it took away the 
sting. The next minute, how glad Hannah was 
she had spoken so frankly. 

" Could I learn to be like the rest?" she asked 
eagerly. " I wish I had anybody to show me. I 
feel somehow as if I could be like folks, if I had 
the chance, if some one would take the pains to 
teach me." 

" I'll teach you all I know, which is more than I 
</<?," said Lucy in her droll fashion. "There! If 
you'll let me tell you a thousand times, what to 
do and what not to do, till you are sick of it, and 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

if you won't say anything about pains or trouble, 
I don't mind giving you the benefit of mother's 
training. You see we 've been taught how to sit, 
and stand, and talk, and behave ourselves, since 
we were in short frocks, and its ground into us — 
what we have learned." 

" I can't wait years to learn," said Hannah, rue- 
fully. " I need to know all these things at once." 

" Well, I should think, being older, you could 
take them easier than we did. Besides, manners, 
like measles, are catching." 

" Oh," implored Hannah, with a face of the 
deepest gravity and earnestness, " would you have 
the kindness to go over me and tell me all my de- 
fects and just what I need to cure them ? I should 
be so thankful. I should worship anyone who 
would do that for me." 

Our Lucy was too sincere herself not to enter 
into the spirit of Hannah's trouble. She saw that 
the girl's rough manners were spoiling her happi- 
ness, and likely to lose her every friend she might 
have. There was no trifling with such a case. 
She did not laugh, or giggle, or shrink, as many 
girls would have done, in dread of hurting Han- 
nah's feelings, and try to make her think she was 
well enough as she was. She knew she would give 
next to everything she had, if anyone would do 
for her what Hannah asked, if she needed it as 



MISS CHARITY'S LADT, AGAIN 

badly. So they went at the work of criticism in 
too great earnestness to think of feelings. 

" You must try to look different," Lucy began. 
" Don't look as if you hadn't a friend in the world, 
because if you haven't, you don't want everybody 
to know it. And you don't want to smile every 
time you're spoken to, or to move your hands and 
feet. And you must learn to say something be- 
sides ' Yes mam ' and i No mam,' and ' I suppose 
so.' And you don't want to be so long getting 
out what you want to say, and you needn't jerk 
your words, as if you had to speak in a flash. 
And if I were you, I would let down the side of 
my dress so that it would hang even, and put" a 
new binding on the cuff. Mother says seam- 
stresses always have frayed edges to their gowns, 
because they are so busy about other folks' sewing 
they can't do anything for themselves, but they 
are the only ones who have an excuse for it. And 
if you should take a good look in the big glass 
every day, I think you would find out several mat- 
ters that I wouldn't have to tell you. And don't 
say wash-dish, because there are different names 
for the different sorts of dishes ; call it a wash- 
basin. And you don't want to say Saint John 
every time, but speak it soft and lightly, S'nt 
John. If you can remember all that with once tell- 
ing, you will have the whole in less than a month." 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

After that, Lucy had Hannah so much we be- 
gan to wonder what she could see in the girl. 
"You will see too, some day," she would say, with 
her sweet smile and arch toss of the head, for there 
was no denying Lucy was airy, in a charming way. 
She was training Hannah in those hundred little 
things that girls take from each other. For an 
opening she went over to Hannah with a very 
pretty easy pattern for skirt trimming she was go- 
ing to make herself, and put Hannah up to work- 
ing some like it with her. Lucy not only showed 
her how to take the stitch, but insisted on wash- 
ing her own fingers before they began, and, of 
course, had Hannah do the same, and put cologne 
on her hands to keep them from getting moist 
and soiling the thread, and taught her to keep the 
work in a fresh handkerchief, for fear of dust, and 
took out some of her cousin Margaret's beautiful 
tatting lace, perfectly white and neat, and some 
of the maid's beginning, dark with careless hand- 
ling, that she might see and feel the difference. 
Hannah took the notion of being dainty about 
her hands and wrist ruffles directly. It was Lucy 
who showed her how Mrs. Howland from Boston, 
who had such bewitching style, taught the girls to 
enter a room as French ladies do it, and rehearsed 
the motions for fun, till Hannah was perfect in it. 
And what should Hannah do one evening, em- 



MISS CHARITY'S LADT, AGAIN 

boldened by her success, but surprise her aunt, who 
was having callers, by a display of such unheard- 
of manners as utterly astonished and delighted 
that lady. Lucy insisted on dressing Hannah for 
tableaux one night at her own house, and with 
clever hairdressing and costuming made her so 
nearly pretty that the girl took a respect for her- 
self for the first time in her life. Lucy taught her 
how to make a bow properly and pin it on, how 
to carry her hands, and to sit with her feet under 
her gown, and what nothings to use in opening 
conversation, in short, how to act "like folks." 

I went away to Boston, about the time the les- 
sons began, and was gone two years, when one day 
Aunt Sturtevant came home with a surprise for 
me. She had met Mrs. Ellis and her delightful 
niece on the street, and they were coming to lunch, 
and to tell me the Havenedge news. 

II Delightful niece," I said to myself. "It must 
be on her husband's side of the family, then." 

" She has been abroad, by the way she gets out 
of a carriage," I thought, catching a glimpse of 
them as they drove up. " I didn't think a Haven- 
edge girl could put on as much style." 

Style ! The word is spoiled to express the walk 
and bearing of the lovely girl who came into the 
room directly, she moved so easily and softly, 
without affectations or mincing, free and direct in 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

her movements, but gloriously graceful and sure. 
Aunt Sturtevant said it was a pleasure to see her 
come into a room and sit down on a sofa. She 
floated when she walked, with firm, smooth steps, 
and when she took a seat the lines of her dress 
flowed about her as if copied from a picture. The 
first thing that came into my head was, " She 
looks as if she had ten thousand a year." Ten 
thousand meant more then than it does now. 
There was a bright, generous, assured air about 
her, as if born to the command and ease of wealth. 
The next moment I knew her, and showed my 
surprise a little. 

" Ah, Chat, dear," she said archly, coloring a 
little, " you don't need to alter so that your friends 
won't know you," and that was all she ever said 
about the change, for she had a pretty pride of 
her own that would not tolerate having her quali- 
ties talked over in her presence. She wasn't quite 
handsome, but she had the simplest and most su- 
perb manners I ever saw. 

Mrs. Ellis was very proud of her, and took her 
everywhere that season, and the Harvard students 
we met called her " the elegant Ellis." Every- 
thing she did, from handing a book or fingering 
the piano, to drawing out a shy, unappreciated girl 
or boy, or man for that matter, was done so simply 
and delightfully that it seemed the only way to do it. 



MISS CHARITY'S LADT, AGAIN 

She was very bright and sensitive, but very 
ignorant, when she came to Havenedge, and she 
was so nervous that she couldn't do as well as she 
knew how. She would have stayed so, if Lucy 
hadn't had the charity and candor to tell her what 
was wanting, and help her to correct her faults. 
I must tell you more about " the elegant Ellis," 
sometime, and you'll agree that it was hard to 
tell which was the true lady, Lucy or Lucy's pupil. 



WITH YOUNGER CHILDREN 

7] N anxious mother writes that she hopes 
©'I something will be said to show the older 
children how to amuse their brothers and sisters. 
The suggestion is gladly followed, for the sake of 
the mothers whom it may relieve, the small ones 
who will be better cared for, and the big brothers 
and sisters who may find their work lightened. 
For it is hard work to take care of little children, 
and I, for one, would rather do the closest day's 
work that ever befell me in any other shape, than 
watch and amuse a child for half a day, as far as 
fatigue goes. Children, it takes the light heart 
and the strength of the older generation to get 
you ready to live, and then you sally forth to en- 
joy life, while we old folks have nothing left but 
to creep away in our graves and rest. You don't 
know, you don't care. But when you have the 
chance of helping an older person, by taking a 
care, or running an errand, do it freely, for you 
know neither how great the burden is, nor how a 



WITH TOUNGER CHILDREN 

little lift relieves it. Perhaps it does not sound 
heroic, or fine, to take the children out of the way, 
and keep them out of harm and in a pleasant tem- 
per an hour or two, but you are doing quite as 
much and as worthy work as the girl who shuts 
herself up to practice brilliant music, or the gifted 
one who paints in water color, and makes the ten- 
dollar bills for herself by it. There is a wonderful 
amount of cleverness in the world among great 
and small, but there isn't so much help as there 
ought to be with it. So, when you are ambitious 
to make beautiful toilet sets, and fern pieces, and 
spatter-work, so that your table at the fair will 
take in as much money as larger ones, or if 
you sigh to be learning telegraphy, or design, like 
other girls you know, who are so independent al- 
ready, remember, when the call comes for you to 
lay these things aside for home duties, without a 
grain of pleasure or credit in them in your eyes, 
that no work in the world tells as much for others, 
or is half as valuable. Nothing makes such con- 
tented, honored women as to know how to do all 
these mean and tiresome things, as well as the 
bright and entertaining ones. What you may find 
in this short lesson, is worth all the rest I have told 
you, put together. 

You must learn how to take care of children 
and amuse them, to make it pleasant for them and 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

yourself. The best feeling in the world is thrown 
away if you don't know how to show it. If there 
is a baby to keep for an hour, find out whether it 
has been asleep lately, or if it is near its time for 
taking a nap. If it is growing tired and fretful, 
very likely it needs to sleep, whether it wants to 
or not. Begin by making the little thing com- 
fortable, if you want any comfort with it. See if 
its feet and hands are warm, and its little body 
about the waist. Babies are often chilly in warm 
weather, because the air creeps under their clothes, 
and it never fails to make them cross. Then you want 
to rub its little body gently till it grows warm, not 
rubbing briskly, but moving your hand softly, and 
letting it lie warm on the skin. If the baby is too 
heated, and the drops are about its chin, and its 
face flushed, bathe it gently about the neck with 
fine soap and tepid water, passing the sponge and 
lather gently under its chin and behind its ears. 
Babies love to be bathed three or four times a 
day in warm weather. But you must be careful 
to keep it out of a draught, for the fine thread of 
air that comes from the crack of a door can chill 
a baby, when it is being washed, enough to bring 
on serious consequences. Remember when your 
baby sneezes, it is getting too cold, and for a baby 
to be chilly means a stomachache or headache at 
once. You want to take pride in having your 



WITH TOUNGER CHILDREN 

baby comfortable and well-kept while it is with 
you. 

The only notion some people have of amusing 
a baby is to toss and bounce it, till it gives up 
crying for want of strength, and goes to sleep, 
as tired out as you are after a long, leg-aching 
walk. A baby's life is one of a good deal of suf- 
fering at best, and you have no idea how it can be 
tormented by rough handling and loud noise, and 
bright light in its eyes, and getting too cold or too 
warm, with not a hand to help itself. Now a baby 
likes to be petted much as a kitten does, and if 
you get it warm and snug and comfortable it will 
thank you as pleasantly as a kitten; let this ad- 
vice guide you, never to toss or frolic with a baby 
unless it shows signs of feeling like it, by crowing 
or springing, as it will when it feels well enough 
for fun. Otherwise, it prefers to lie on the lap 
and be stroked, and have its back rubbed, which 
is a perfect luxury to all babies, or to be sung to, 
not loud, but in soft, sweet tones, crooned over it. 
If it is rebellious at leaving mamma and screams, 
wet a handkerchief in water warm enough to feel 
pleasant to your own eyelids, and blindfold the 
little rebel with it, laying a soft towel over the 
whole head to keep it warm. I have blindfolded 
my baby this way many a time, and quieted him 
in two or three minutes. It is one of the best 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

ways of soothing a child off to sleep, for it cools 
its little irritable brains and quiets its nerves. The 
baby will fight against it lustily for a minute or 
two, but when it finds it can't get the bandage off, 
it gives up, and very soon will be cooing itself to 
sleep. If you should sing to it while quiet this 
way, and loosen the handkerchief gently, you will 
find under it a baby thoroughly tranquil and 
good-humored, ready for play, or such conversa- 
tion as you may attempt. An amusement my 
baby used to relish very much, that I called his 
incantation, was to lay him on the bed, flat on his 
back, and stroke him with both hands from head 
to foot over his long gown, singing to a monoto- 
nous tune : 

" His mother will smooth him down, smooth him 
down, smooth him down;" a performance that used 
to send him off in shrieks of delight. I sup- 
pose it was soothing to him, and suited his sense 
of the grotesque, for babies have a strong sense 
of the absurd. Then they love to have something 
to do, a spray of leaves to strip, or a flower to 
pick to pieces, or a heap of sand or bran on a 
newspaper to poke in, or a ball to roll with some- 
body to make up the game. To save yourself 
running to pick it up, make a return ball, with 
string enough fastened to one side to draw it 
back, no matter what corner it rolls to. A dog 



WITH YOUNGER CHILDREN 

or cat, covered with an old scrap of fur and stuffed 
with down, will be a favorite plaything, and aheap 
of fine paper clippings, that blow and scatter when 
it grabs them, will amuse a child highly. Don't 
feed it, unless you are told to, or it is time for its 
dinner. But you may give a baby and the whole 
house relief, when it is fretful from teething, by 
picking the tiniest fragments of ice off a lump 
with a pin, and putting them in its mouth. A 
wise doctor told me to do this, and it made one 
baby happy through his trying time, anyhow. 

The bits must not be any thicker than the pin 
itself, so as to melt immediately in its mouth, and 
it will cool the swollen fevered gums and stop its 
fretting like magic. Be patient with the baby 
while it is teething. Do you know its little gums 
ache then just as a boil does when it is coming 
on ? and most of you know how that feels. The 
doctor said it was safe to give a baby all the ice it 
would eat in fine bits, for it melted and was warm 
water before it was swallowed, and could do no 
harm, but much good. 

But it isn't always the baby you are called to 
amuse. There are such members of society as 
six-year-olds as I painfully know, for such an one 
has just laid his head on the pillow in the room 
across the hall. The six-year-olds have such life 
and spirits they can run us grown people off our 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

feet, and race us out of breath, and call for stories 
till one's brains give out, worse than with making 
conversation for a room full of company. I have 
to devise and search and contrive to be good 
company for those lively wits and limbs asleep 
there on mamma's bed, after a day's tramp follow- 
ing a hunting party, half way to Mamaroneck and 
over by the beach, dinnerless but for some apples 
he found in the wood. A square of silver per- 
forated board and a worsted needle full of pink 
zephyr used to keep the little fingers busy, on 
rainy days, and you will find that children four 
years old can work their patterns for a shaving 
case or a match lighter, with great satisfaction, 
particularly if it is to be a " s'prise " for somebody 
at Christmas. That same small boy rips most of 
his mother's old seams for her, and never was 
known to cut a stitch, or to grumble over the work 
if he could have a cheerful talk thrown in. 

Children like to be useful and feel that they 
are accomplishing something, and they can do 
more than we suppose, if they only have some- 
body to work with them. So find something for 
your little folks to do, if it is picking up apples or 
pulling weeds with you, or folding newspapers, or 
picking and shelling peas and berries or the 
currants for cake. They have sense enough for 
it, only you must not keep them long at one 



WITH TOUNGER CHILDREN 

thing, unless of their own accord. Twenty min- 
utes is a long time for them to work, and you will 
be wise in suggesting something new as soon as 
the signs of weariness begin. Always give them a 
little task, however, that they must finish, and 
put them on their pride about it, so that they 
will learn steadiness by degrees. 

Then do let them play. If they are noisy and 
troublesome turn them out-of-doors, and let them 
romp. They need not be rude if they do romp. 
And dance with them. I never saw a child that 
did not love to have its hands taken by an older 
one, and swing and hop round to a tune, the 
faster the better. Sawing wood, by crossing the 
wrists and taking hands, and drawing them back 
and forth, or wringing the dishcloth, with arms 
overhead, as every child knows, is fun, but bean- 
bags are, perhaps, the best fun for small people. 
They can catch a bag better than a ball, and it 
does not give such hard knocks. Dressing up in 
a cocked hat, sash and epaulettes, cut out of news- 
papers, has all the delight of a masquerade to the 
small fry. I know of nothing so absolutely ex- 
citing as painting small faces with colored crayons, 
with a cast-off rooster's feather in the hair, a 
shawl for a blanket, and playing Indian in earnest. 
Measuring heights against the door is always 
entertaining, so is playing postman with a bag of 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

letters. But there are some pleasant games that 
will better amuse a quiet hour. 

The boys in some of the West Side wards in 
New York, treat the town to wonderful processions 
Thanksgiving mornings, that recall the ancient 
masques or mummery of old English times. 
They turn out in bands of fifty or a hundred, 
divided into companies, in different costumes. 
Indians, Brother Jonathans, with striped coats of 
bed ticking, and tall white hats, powdered for the 
occasion. Dutchmen with red waistcoats and 
stuffed figures, plantation negroes and military. 
Where all the war paint and feathers come from 
is past telling, but it is one proof of a universal 
taste among small fry, and those not so small, for 
dressing up in any character not their own. 

If you undertake any such dramatics, a soft 
brick powdered will yield rouge for several fierce 
Comanches, and scalps of raveled hemp cord will 
furnish broomstick lances. Two or three masks, 
such as sell in toyshops for five cents, will be 
invaluable. 

There are merry English games, amusing to all 
ages, that the youngest can join in, and some day 
I should like to tell you of them ; but as " Robin's 
Alive" and " Housekeeping," " Blindman's Buff " 
and "Cat's Cradle" are not yet exhausted, and 
riddles and " Mother Goose" keep their charm, 



WITH TOUNGER CHILDREN 

you will find enough to make the younger chil- 
dren happy, with a judicious supply of Indian, 
fairy and bear stories, with plenty of growling 
thrown in. Make each one tell some story in turn, 
which will give you a rest. They can do it after 
a fashion, and it will be a good exercise for their 
memory. I meant to tell you the rest of the 
games and occupations laid up for my "Little- 
boy," which is one of the two dozen pet names 
of the six-year-old, whose silver board and rain- 
bow wools lie on the Lilliputian table by my 
side, relics of a rainy day's pastime. But, come 
to think, it would take a book to tell them all, 
and I might want some coaxing to tell them be- 
tween now and next Christmas. 



XI 

MANNERS AWAY FROM HOME 

r[70 be invited by one's self for an old fash- 
ioned visit, is one's first taste of the world. 
To have the traveling bag packed, and the sand- 
wiches, and the lady cake to look genteel, not for- 
gotten, with a magazine and a shawl strap, duster 
or ulster, and a satchel with a worked canvas 
cover, a bouquet and a paper of caramels, to be 
put in care of the good-humored conductor, and 
whirl off on the train alone, is a delicious ex- 
perience which seems to taste all the honey of 
life in one's mouth at once. On these visits one 
first learns to feel his own responsibility for him- 
self, and there is a great luxury in being on one's 
good behavior with no special calling to account 
for it. 

It is a safe rule on the cars, or in journeying 
alone ever so short a distance, not to speak to 
strangers. A girl especially had better be distant 
to the verge of uncivility than fall into the other 
extreme of making acquaintances on short notice, 



MANNERS A WA T FROM HOME 

exchanging cards and addresses and getting up 
correspondence with people she knows nothing 
about. The girl who can do such things has very 
little respect for herself. To say the least, it looks 
as if she had not friends enough of her own, or 
only cared for novelty, neither case being credit- 
able to her disposition or bringing up. 

But there is a loose change of civility one may 
carry on a journey, to spend in making time 
pleasant for one's self and others, and be none 
the poorer for. When an old lady, or one not so 
old, ventures a civil remark, or an old gentleman 
good-naturedly tries to divert himself and you by 
a conversation, it isn't for you to draw back and 
put on offended airs or give up to native bashful- 
ness. Remember the privilege that has just been 
put upon you, of being a " citizen of the world," 
and answer to your duty, which is, not to show 
yourself off, or make an impression, but to just 
be pleasant. You will soon learn what people it 
won't do to be sociable with. Strangers who 
begin with a string of questions, " Are you travel- 
ing alone?" " How old are you?" " Have you a 
mother?" or " Come from such a place," may be 
well-meaning folks whose only idea of getting up 
a conversation is by asking questions enough for 
a geography lesson, or they may be as undesir- 
able to have anything to do with as the wolf that 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

met Red Riding-Hood. It makes no difference. 
You are to answer no questions about your busi- 
ness, or destination, from strangers, and well-bred 
ones know better than to ask you. Be very civil 
about your assertion, for it is cruel to hurt the 
feelings of kind ignorant people, who would do 
better if they knew how, and impertinence is 
worst punished with politeness. When the in- 
quisition opens with the stereotyped " How far 
are you going? " or the blunter " Where are you 
going?" don't put on the airs boarding school 
girls love to practice as " hauteur," and look as 
shocked as if you had been asked to steal. There 
is no occasion here for these grand airs which will 
come appropriately, perhaps, three times in the 
course of your whole life. It is enough to say, very 
gently and quietly, " not far," or "some distance," as 
it maybe, then turn around and look square away 
from the questioner, take up a book or gaze out of 
the window, and refuse to hear any more cross- 
questionings. If you want to know anything about 
the journey, ask the conductor or porter, or 
appeal to the oldest lady or gentleman in reach. 
Don't say " excuse me," for asking a necessary 
question which you have a perfect right to put. 
Don't go about the world apologizing for being 
in it. but keep excuses till they are needed. There 
will be occasion enough for them. "Please tell 



MANNERS A WAT FROM HOME 

me," or " Will you be kind enough to tell me this 
or that," is good form. 

I take it for granted you are not one of the 
lunch-eaters, who begin on caramel as soon as the 
train starts, and keep nibbling all the way. Nor 
are you one of the selfish people who take up a 
whole seat in a crowded car with themselves and 
their parcels, or one of those stupid thoughtless 
ones who allow a timid stranger to go looking for 
a place through a car without a motion to give up 
the vacant one at their sides. As for the girls or 
women who think it clever to murmur " this seat 
is engaged," meaning it is engaged for their own 
convenience, they should be put in the same class 
with the girls at dancing school and not of it, 
who are always " engaged " not to do anything 
they don't wish to do, and all sent to a country 
by themselves where decent people could never 
be annoyed by them. No fair-minded person 
would ever exchange a second word with any girl 
caught in such a trick. 

The child or person who does not mean to take 
his share of the annoyances and inconveniences of 
life, deserves to be served as the bees treat their 
drones, stung to death and cast out of the world. 

If your friends know you are coming they 
should send some one to meet you at the station, 
and this is an attention you must be careful always 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

to show your guests. To allow a visitor to find 
the way to and from your house alone, when he 
has taken the trouble to come and see you, says 
very plainly that you think his visit of little ac- 
count. In the last few miles of the journey, make 
yourself as neat as possible, which is easy to do if 
you go in a reserved car. Wash the dust off, 
smooth your hair, put on a fresh collar and brush 
and shake your clothes in the dressing room, 
for you don't want to hurry from your friends 
to your room before you can be fit to be 
seen. 

When you go on a visit, especially the first 
time, anywhere, have it fixed how long you are 
going to stay, and let no common urging induce 
you to make it longer. Better go away before 
people have had enough of you. It is better to 
let your friends know how long you mean to stay, 
after you arrive. They will want to know how 
much time they have to plan for, whether they 
can take you separately to see the shipyards and 
the lower bay, and have a picnic and a dance, or 
whether they must make the most of your day or 
two, and crowd the pleasure. All the same, I 
don't think it sounds well to hear people ask, be- 
fore their visitors have spent their first evening 
with them, " How long have you come to stay?" 
If such a question were put to myself, the answer 



MANNERS AW AT FROM HOME 

I should want to make would be, " Till the stage 
can take me away by the next train." How 
much better it sounds to hear, " I hope you've 
come to make us a good long visit," or " Now I 
want to know how much time I'm to have with 
you." That you may never hear these words 
spoken any way but sincerely, it is a good rule 
never to go anywhere without special invitation, 
certainly never without sending word you are 
coming. Unless very intimate with people, make 
visits to them only when they set a day and time 
for you to come, then you know they want you. 
There are plenty of Delight Sanborns to say 
sweetly, " Why don't you ever come and see me? 
Come any time, I shall be so glad." When they 
really don't care whether you ever come or not. 
But when Delight says, " Won't you come next 
Wednesday and stay to tea, and we'll go on the 
lake in the evening," you may be sure you are 
wanted. Or when she writes for you to spend 
Commencement week with her, you will be pretty 
sure to be treated with Delight's very best, for 
she meant that invitation. " Come and see me 
sometime," is a careless invitation, that sounds 
pleasantly enough, but isn't very complimentary 
either to the giver or receiver. It means, " I like 
you well enough, and, when everything is just 
right, and nothing better at hand, I shouldn't 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

mind finding you about to amuse me, but it isn't 
the least matter." 

Remember, before you get into the agonies of 
doubt that beset even well-bred children as to 
whether they ought to accept the politenesses 
showered on them away from home, this thing or 
two : 

People who come to see you, compliment you 
by liking to be with you, and when they lay aside 
other pleasures and occupations to come when 
you want them, you should feel like giving them 
all the pleasure possible in return. The best seat, 
and the choice whether to walk or ride, or play, 
should be offered them, and not merely offered, 
but given, and left for them to take. You wish 
to make everything pleasant for them, and it 
doesn't seem gracious when they run against your 
polite efforts, and won't let you be as kind as you 
will. Put yourself in the same place when you 
are visitor. Don't make things awkward for your 
entertainers by refusing the best seat in the car- 
riage when there are no very much older ones to 
take it, or by obstinately refusing to say whether 
you prefer to go fishing, or stay at home, or by 
declining a lunch sent to your room with kindest 
intentions. When the choice is offered you in 
anything, make it. It isn't even polite, when asked 
what part of a chicken you will have at dinner, to 



MANNERS A WA T FROM HOME 

say " anything you please," or " I'm not particu- 
lar," which used to be thought a genteel speech. 
You are to save other people the trouble of choos- 
ing for you, and say what you will have, making 
some choice, though really not particular, as you 
might say. 

When I was young, I used to be deeply con- 
cerned sometimes lest the people I was visiting 
offered more than they really wished accepted. 
Whether they really meant me to have the second 
slice of fruit cake or mince pie, whether, when 
they told me to open the bookcase and help my- 
self to story books, they wouldn't prefer the books 
should go untouched, whether they did really not 
mind if I took a gallop on one of the horses, or 
practiced on the piano of a morning, were such 
doubtful points as took away all the pleasure of 
doing what I liked, so that I " snatched a fearful 
joy " in doing anything I liked. And as signs of 
similar sentiments are yet to be found in the 
younger generation, it may reassure some shy boy 
or girl to know that we have no business to think 
whether our friends mean what they say. We 
ought to take their word for what it is, and not 
go back of it. If you take no liberties that you 're 
not invited to, you may take as many offered 
ones as you please, and be sure your friends will 
find it all right. 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

There are civilities offered sometimes which 
you should never accept, and those are the privi- 
leges of persons much older than yourself. 
Grandmamma, with the politeness and self-denial 
that comes so easily to elder age, after practicing 
it a lifetime, will offer you her chair by the fire 
because you are a visitor, but you must not think 
of taking it. It is compliment enough to you 
that she offered it. The mother may desire you 
to keep the easy chair from which you rise as she 
comes in, but you will not resume it unless there 
is a better one for her in the room. Nor will you 
keep the newspaper for the first reading when the 
father waves it back to you. At a crowded re- 
ception in Philadelphia, years ago, the elegant 
Mrs. Blodgett, still celebrated for her beauty, in- 
sisted on giving up her seat out of compliment to 
a young stranger just presented to her. Her 
courtesy, though cool, always meant something, 
and the offer was repeated in such a way that it 
seemed a rudeness to refuse. But it was a com- 
fort to hear Doctor John Wardour, the delightful 
savant and finished gentleman, say with decision 
as he walked away, " That was right. You could 
not have taken her seat with any degree of polite- 
ness," though he had been watching the lit- 
tle strife of compliment without change of a 
muscle to help a novice out of a dilemma. 



MANNERS A WAT FROM HOME 

Lessons by such teachers never lose their 
stamp. 

In return for the attentions your friends show, 
you while visiting, you will be careful not to put 
them out by habits and hours different from theirs. 
When you go to bed, ask what time you shall get 
up, and what is the breakfast hour, and let any- 
body else keep the table waiting, but not you. 
Dress neatly, but quickly, and learn to get ready 
for a drive or walk in the briefest time. How 
Lucy used to try my patience when she came to 
stay all night with me! Hours in a boarding 
house are fixed, and the breakfast bell would ring, 
and breakfast time go by, with that child daw- 
dling over her shoe-strings, stopping to talk with 
her hands clasped round her knees, engaging 
in a pillow fight or two, and braiding her long 
hair leisurely, while the chambermaid knocked 
with, " Mrs. Putney says it's a quarter to nine, 
and are ye not coming down for breakfast," till 
finally, by taking matters in hand myself, we crept 
down to cold coffee and gristly steak, with the 
forenoon spoiled. I used to vow regularly that I 
never would ask Lucy to come and see me again, 
but though I love her and invited her still, as your 
friends do you, it isn't worth while to try them 
with such small negligences. 

If there are servants in the house, enough to 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

do the work, you will not think of helping, though 
you will ask as little waiting on as possible, for 
they often resent having to work for visitors, and 
you don't want to make your friends trouble with 
them. But when there is only one servant or 
none, it surely is your place not only to offer 
help, but to give it. There is all the difference in 
the world between offering help and meaning to 
help. You will see a handsomely dressed girl, on 
a visit, sitting about with her fancywork, while 
her friends are busy taking care of their rooms, 
getting nice little dinners and teas, perhaps iron- 
ing her ruffles and collars, while she contents her- 
self with a languid "Aunt, can't I help you some- 
how ? " or a sweetly uttered, " I do wish you would 
let me do something," while she accepts the polite 
objections without noticing or minding how much 
her presence adds to the daily cares of the house. 
You will always enjoy your visits more for joining 
your friends in their work as well as their fun. 
The least you can do is always to take care of 
your own room, if you know how. Be careful of 
the pretty room that may be given you, taking 
care not to splash the handsome toilet mats, or 
carpet, when you wash your face, nor throwing 
your dark or dusty clothes on the spotless Mar- 
seilles coverlet, or stepping on the white wool mat 
at the bedside with soiled shoes or stockings. A 



MANNERS A WAT FROM HOME 

bedroom is no place for soiled and dusty things, 
anyhow. If you come home from a tramp, dusty 
and stained, don't carry yourself right into the 
sweet, fair chamber, to leave marks of soil and 
disorder that will last after you are gone. Shake 
the dust off on the grass plot or piazza before you 
go in the house. If you are caught in the rain, 
leave the mud at the door, and see that your 
waterproof and umbrella are put to dry where 
they will not drip on anything that can be hurt. 
I mention these things, not so much because you 
don't know them, as to put you in mind of what 
you do know. So you will not set a glass of 
water on a polished table where it will stain the 
wood or marble, nor eat cake over a book and 
drop crumbs in it, nor cut paper or strew odds 
and ends over table and floor when you work, but 
learn to spread a newspaper to catch clippings, 
and keep threads in a little pile to be swept off 
when through with sewing. Of course, your 
friends love you well enough to put up with such 
things, but it isn't really nice to be always cross- 
ing their neat ways with carelessness that you 
never ought to allow yourself anywhere. It is 
part of a man's or a woman's business — I don't 
say gentleman's or lady's, for it belongs to every- 
body — to know how to do things the best way, 
and to learn so well, that doing right becomes 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

natural and the only way. It is a great deal easier 
to be nice than to be careless, if you only knew 
it. You would learn it very quickly if you had 
to undo your carelessness every time. 

Before you leave your room in the morning, see 
that the hat, dress, and shoes that you may need 
through the day are in order, no button wanting, 
no ruffle unbasted, that will keep you waiting 
when you want to walk ; and get your fancywork 
ready, if you need it. Turn the bedclothes 
down to the foot of the bed, and open the window 
to air the room, leave your hair brush and comb 
clean, and hang up your clothes, or fold them in 
the drawers. School girls, especially, have a fash- 
ion of leaving their wardrobe in review of all the 
chairs in a room, that isn't good for the clothes 
or the looks of things. If you feel stupid in the 
morning, try a little exercise before you go down, 
to waken yourself up. Swing your arms and rub 
your skin till it is warm and the circulation brisk. 
It makes the morning so much pleasanter to have 
people come in feeling bright and comfortable and 
good-humored. If you don't feel very well, say 
nothing about it, for the feeling may pass away 
of itself, and you don't want to press your little 
aches and miseries upon the notice of other peo- 
ple. Say good morning to everybody in the room, 
when you present yourself, and it is polite, after 



MANNERS AW AT FROM HOME 

the usual inquiries if you slept well which the 
hostess will make, for you to say, " I hope you 
are feeling well," or some little thing that shows 
you care whether your friends are happy or 
not. 

When you are in a house, you are to do very 
much as the hostess desires you. Sit in the chair 
she points out, go in the parlor and see her 
callers if she asks you, and not unless she does, 
and if she wants to know if you would like to 
drive, or walk in the garden, or take a book in the 
parlor awhile this morning, take the hint that 
she wants to be alone awhile. She may have 
some work that she can do better without a guest 
to entertain for the hour. If your friends must 
be busy, contrive to help them or to amuse your- 
self awhile. If you can see help is needed, do 
what you can. Don't offer to take the baby, but 
put your arms out and clasp him, or if there is an 
errand to be done, rise to get your hat while you 
offer, make some motion that shows you are in 
earnest, and you will very soon know whether 
your aid is acceptable or not. Whether you can 
help or not, you ought to make yourself agree^ 
able, as the least return for the hospitality shown 
you. To spend hours reading, when your friends 
are waiting to talk with you, or to be moping and 
dull, is treating them very badly, as if you came 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

to their house only to amuse yourself and did not 
care at all about seeing them. 

If you have friends in town whom the family 
you are staying with do not know, you may call 
upon them, but it is polite to ask one of your 
friends to go with you. If calls should be made 
on you, always ask the friends you are with to 
share them. It is not showing a lady respect to 
have strangers coming and going in her house and 
using her parlors, without at least asking her to 
take part of the pleasure of their company. Girls 
are not always careful about these things. You 
have no right to ask friends to come and spend 
the day with you, or to stay to tea, or pass the 
evening with you, when you are visiting. It is 
kind in your hostess to give you leave to do so, 
and you may properly accept it. You should not 
make long visits away from her house, unless one 
of the family is with you, or it will look as if you 
made her house a convenience, to eat and sleep 
at, while you took your pleasure somewhere else. 
When friends come to see you by permission, see 
that they do not stay too long, or make them- 
selves troublesome — you are responsible for 
their behavior as they are your company, not 
that of the house. Two girls playing noisy 
galops and duets on the piano so as to be heard 
all over the house, or calling at inconvenient 



MANNERS A WAT FROM HOME 

hours, may make themselves real nuisances in a 
family. 

If there is a coolness between two of your friends 
you should never visit one while staying with the 
other, for it is not kind to disregard the feelings of 
your hostess. Avoid mentioning the names of 
people your friends are not on good terms with. 
I know that this is very different from the habits 
which many girls think clever, of piquing a friend 
by repeating in her hearing all the compliments 
they hear paid anyone she particularly dislikes. 
It is human not to enjoy hearing our enemies 
praised, and the nature mean enough to give such 
pin-pricks is coarse as the Bridget who blackguards 
a girl with a worse bonnet than her own. Any- 
body can be stupid enough to be malicious, few 
are wise enough to be completely kind. 

In the matter of allowing friends to pay little 
expenses for you, always have your car or stage 
fare ready, and in your hand, when the conductor 
comes round, but if your friends insist on paying 
for you let them, and don't make too much of 
trifles. For a day or two, at first, you may allow 
these little attentions, but as it is not nice to be 
under the slightest money obligation to anybody, 
you should insist on paying your own fares after- 
ward, and take the first chance to return the 
civility by paying for the whole party. You may 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

accept invitations to visit theaters and picture 
galleries, and it would be out of place to offer to 
pay for your own tickets, but you will take care 
to return attentions in some way that shows good 
feeling, it may be by a present, not so costly as 
tasteful, the set of toilet mats or the lace cushion 
you have been working during your stay, a flower- 
ing plant, or some nicely done piece of sewing, or 
a picture frame. I don't mean that you are to 
keep account of the favors shown you in a dollar- 
and-cent way, as some girls are mean enough to 
do, but always meet kindness with kindness as 
far as you are able. Your hostess may be able to 
give you the advantages of a visit in the city, with 
all sorts of gaieties and entertainments, and you 
may have nothing of the sort to offer, but you 
can invite her heartily to your home and village 
fun, and you can send her some token of your 
handiwork, that will take its value from the lov- 
ing thoughts and fancies wrought into it, and she 
will prize it as such. If the servants have taken 
trouble to make your visit pleasant, remember 
them by a little present, a needlebook and box 
of thread, a necktie or trinket, useful, as well as 
pretty, and they will think more of it if given 
with your own hand and a word of thanks. Give 
your hostess full thanks for all the pleasure you 
have had in your visit, in taking leave, and write 



MANNERS AW AT FROM HOME 

to her within a week after you get home, and say 
something to make her feel that she succeeded in 
giving you pleasure, and that you remember her 
cordially. If it wasn't the best time you ever had 
in your life, if she tried to make it pleasant, that 
is something to be grateful for. 

Whatever you may have seen or heard while 
visiting at a house, you are in honor bound never 
to mention it to the disadvantage of the family 
you have been with. 

The thoughtlessness of young people on this 
point has made more mischief than they could 
ever undo. It is amusing to hear a clever girl 
take off the peculiarities of others, and she can 
doubtless make a circle " nearly die with laugh- 
ing " at her accounts of how things went on 
where she was staying. She does not know that 
she violates the oldest law of courtesy in the 
world, and that her manners are lower than an 
Indian's in doing so. Even servant girls of the 
better class think too much of themselves to 
"carry tales," and I have been surprised at the 
honor and reserve they showed in keeping their 
employer's affairs private, when there was every 
temptation for them to gossip. It is a rare 
virtue, but not a lost one. A young lady should 
have good feeling enough to keep her from ever 
lisping a syllable to the discredit of those under 



ART OF GOOD MANNERS 

whose roof she has been, and at whose table she 
has eaten ; she may ridicule them, but she dis- 
credits herself more. Don't permit yourself the 
impertinence of " talking over " people. You 
have not seen enough of the world yet to know 
that others may have very different ways of liv- 
ing from those you are used to, and not be open 
to criticism. There are very, very few families 
with whom one can live, and not find plenty 
to satirize, and how do you know that yours is 
one of the number? There is nothing so open 
to caricature as the assumption of people who 
imagine themselves and their set always in the 
right, and those who laugh with you over your 
friends, will probably laugh at you in your turn, 
behind your back. Your friends may have hash 
for dinner and pie for breakfast, they may "gush," 
and have affectations, but you had better do all 
four, than be guilty of the unkindness, the 
vulgarity, the crime, of repeating it. Anyone 
who does so is as mean as one who listens at a 
keyhole, or breaks open another person's letter. 



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THE DETERMINATION OF SEX. 

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NAPOLEON FROM CORSICA TO ST. HELENA. 

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THE OLD MASTERS WITH THE CHILDREN. 

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EVERY DAY FACTS. 

A complete single volume Cyclopedia for the American home. Fully up-to-date. 
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THE STORY OF CUBA. 

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Two thousand years of German life. By Johannes Scherr. Three hundred engrav- 
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THE PRESIDENTIAL COOK BOOK. 

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JOHN SHERHAN'S RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS IN THE 
HOUSE, SENATE AND CABINET. 

An autobiography. Being the personal reminiscences of the author, including the 
political and financial history of the United States during his public career. The library 
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Fine English Cloth, gold side and back stamps, plain edges, $7*50 per set. 

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Autograph edition, limited to one thousand numbered copies, printed on specially 
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The household edition is issued in one royal octavo volume, containing about 950 
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Half morocco, gold center back, marbled edges, $6.00. 

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niLITARY CAREER OF NAPOLEON THE GREAT. 

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THE GERriAN=ENGLISH BUSINESS LETTER WRITER. 

A practical aid. Carefully prepared by competent hands, to assist in the transaction 
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THE QUEEN'S REIGN. 

By Sir Walter Besant. Price, $2.50. 

THE TEMPERANCE COOK BOOK. 

Free from reference to ardent spirits. Over 1,100 tested recipes. Articles on carving, 
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GERMANY'S IRON CHANCELLOR. 

By Bruno Garlepp. Translated from the German by Sidney Whitman, F. R. G. S., 
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The styles of binding and prices are as follows : 

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Price, $5.50. Cloth, $4.00. 

STREET TYPES OF GREAT CITIES. 

By Sigmund Kransz. The queer people that you sometimes see as you wend your 
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STEAM, STEEL AND ELECTRICITY. 

By Jas. W. Steele. A new book which ought to be in every household in the 
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grams. i2mo., half Russia. Price, $1.00. 

MANUAL OF USEFUL INFORMATION. 

A pocket encyclopedia. A world of knowledge. Embracing more than 1,000,000 
facts, figures, and fancies, drawn from every land and language, and carefully classified 
for the ready reference of teachers, students, business men, and the family circle. Com- 
piled by a score of editors under the direction of Mr. J. C. Thomas, with an introduction 
by Frank A. Fitzpatrick, superintendent of city schools, Omaha, Neb. Full Morocco, 
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SCENIC AMERICA. 

Or the Beauties of the Western Hemisphere. 256 half-tone pictures, with descriptions 
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PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF GENERAL NELSON A. MILES. 

The wonderful career of a self-made man. How he rose from a Second lieutenant 
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THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF TEACHING. 

Presents the complete writings of David P. Page, edited by Supt. J. M. Greenwood, 
of the Kansas City Schools, assisted by Prof. Cyrus W. Hodgin, of Earlham College, 
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THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Revised edition, is a publication of exceptional merit, containing selections from 
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Thackeray, Dickens, and others who have written on subjects pertaining to educational 
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A complete pictorial encyclopedia of practical reference for horse and stock owners. 
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MARTIAL RECITATIONS. 

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PRACTICAL LESSONS IN SCIENCE. 

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WOMAN, HER HOME, HEALTH AND BEAUTY. 

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PRACTICAL LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 

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KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. 

A hundred anecdotes of a hundred famous men, — our eminent orators, wits and 
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Artemus Ward, Henry Ward Beecher, Josh Billings, John B. Gough, Petroleum V. Nasby, 
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LITTLE FOLKS' LIBRARY. 

A set of six instructive and vastly entertaining midget volumes, written expressly 
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RHYME UPON RHYME. 

Edited by Amelia Hofer, ex-president Kindergarten Department of National 
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LITTLE FARHERS. 
By W. O. Krohn, Ph. D., Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois. Illustrated 
by Wm. Ottman. 

CIRCUS DAY. 
By George Ade, special writer for the Chicago Record. Illustrated by John T. 

McCutcheon. 

FAIRY TALES. 

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STORIES FROM HISTORY. 

By John Hazelden, historian. Illustrated by John T. McCutcheon, of the Chicago 
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BEAUTIFUL BRITAIN. 

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A VOYAGE IN THE YACHT SUNBEAM. 

" Our home on the Ocean for Eleven Months." By Lady Brassey. The verdict of 
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By D. Magner. The well-known authority on training, educating, taming and 
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leading horse experts everywhere. I,arge quarto volume ; 638 pages ; over one thousand 
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THE BIBLE FOR YOUNQ PEOPLE. 

In words of easy reading. The sweet stories of God's word. In the language of 
childhood. By the gifted author, Josephine Pollard. Beautifully illustrated with 
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GLIMPSES OF THE WORLD. 

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photographs collected by the celebrated traveler and lecturer, John L,. Stoddard, by 
whom the pictures are described in graphic language. In Glimpses of the World is 
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THE WERNER POCKET ATLAS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

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THE CAPITOL COOK BOOK. 

448 pages, 8^x6 inches ; weight, 1% pounds ; over 1,400 tested recipes by Hugo Zieman, 
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THE WALDORF COOK BOOK. 

By " Oscar '.' of the Waldorf. The most thorough and complete treatise on Practical 
Cookery ever published. The author, Oscar Tschirky, Maitre d' Hotel, The Waldorf and 
Astoria, is acknowledged to be one of the foremost culinary authorities of the world. 
Elaborate directions are given for making ice creams, ices, pastries and tea and coffee. 
Selections may be made to gratify any taste. Original and varied recipes are given for 
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THE STORY OF AMERICAN HEROISM. 

As told by the Medal Winners and Roll of Honor men. A remarkable collection of 
thrilling, historical incidents of personal adventures during and after the great Civil 
War. Narratives by such heroes as Gen. L,ew Wallace, Gen. O. O. Howard, Gen. 
Alex. Webb, Gen. Fitzhugh L,ee, Gen. Wade Hampton. A war gallery of noted men 
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